Soft blows the breeze through barley and bloom,
hill fold and hollow hold to the light.
Gone are the gallops, the grim throated war cries,
only the grasses remember the sound.
hill fold and hollow hold to the light.
Gone are the gallops, the grim throated war cries,
only the grasses remember the sound.
Stone walls settle with stories within them,
thatch bends low where tales once rose.
Children run free in the fields of the fathers,
their laughter the echo of earlier days.
thatch bends low where tales once rose.
Children run free in the fields of the fathers,
their laughter the echo of earlier days.
Rivers still wander down ridges and valleys,
old roots drink deep from rain and time.
Clouds drift slowly like thoughts unspoken,
and larks keep singing what men forgot.
old roots drink deep from rain and time.
Clouds drift slowly like thoughts unspoken,
and larks keep singing what men forgot.
No banners beckon from barn roofs or towers,
no horns now hasten the hooves to ride.
Yet something lingers in soil and shadow,
a whisper of oaths, of honor once sworn.
no horns now hasten the hooves to ride.
Yet something lingers in soil and shadow,
a whisper of oaths, of honor once sworn.
Though kings lie quiet in kurgans and barrows,
their names are sown in the song of the land.
The Mark endures, not in might or in memory,
but in wheat, wind, and the will to remain
my own poor attempt at poetry.
