Who
paints the sand with burning drops of red?
I will not beg his quarter, does he know
I'm at his mercy? Still am I,
with jaw clenched tight, await the blow.
To read his face, alas! if I but could,
to know what thoughts resided in the heart
of stone so cold and eyes so dead,
my sword and I two strides apart.
But oh to reach for it would be my fate,
and to take my own life I would not dare,
so heart beats fast within my chest,
as sword raise high into the air.
My breath is caught, for know I not what lies
beyond the lightly-spoken black descent,
and wish I not to find myself
beneath that sword, a bleeding dent.
His face is not the brother I once knew,
for now his great sword rides above his head
with the light of the million moons,
reflecting calmly off the dead.
It falls upon my face and stays to linger.
"Oh gods on high! Why lead me to this end!"
To fall beneath a hand I love
and know so well as call a friend.
The eyes so cold and dead did shed one tear,
perhaps for me and then, perhaps for none.
The great knife rose to paint again,
then fell the stroke, and I was gone.
But with me went the burdens of the men,
And with me went the cries of the children,
For as I fell, the people rose,
To take apart and build again.