Arrow

Stub towers in the distance, riders cross the blasted moor 
       against the horizon 
Fickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war 
       futile orisons 
Swirl as one in this flight, this mad chase 
This surge across the marshy mud landscape 
       until the meaning is forgotten 
Hood masks the eager face, skin stretched and sallow 
       Headlong into the chilling night as swift as any arrow 

Feet against the flagstone, fingers scrabbling 
at the lock craving protection 
Sanctuary! croaks a voice, half-strangled by the shock 
Of its rejection 
Shot the bolt in the wall, rusted the key 
Now the echoes of all frightfull memory intrude in the silence 
What a crawl against the slope - dark loom the gallows 

One touch to the chapel door, how swiftly comes the arrow 

Compassion you plead, as though they kept it in a box - 
that's long since been empty 
I'd like to help you somehow, but I'm in the self-same spot: 
My condition exempts me 
We are all on the run on our knees 
The sundial draws a line upon eternity across every number 

How long the time seems, how dark the shadow 
How straight the eagle flies, how straight towards his arrow 
How long the night is - why is this passage so narrow? 
How strange my body feels, impaled upon the arrow.