Madrone

Winds clashing in four directions
So this is home away from you
A cathedral of candles on the tables lit
Crooked smiles mangled and strange
And the embers came drifting down the road
On this road away from you, on this road away from you
It’s now in my nature to revere these signs
Fox and hind stare from the roadside
Smoke conceals the hill’s fate and distance shrouds my Love’s face
And the fires they rage, I can feel it through my bones
Away from love, away from heart, away from home
Driving to the sanctuary in the heart of the bay
Where the garden holds light and marks my pain
Fatigued from flight in this lead boil of hate
With enough anger to fill the decades
I am absent from life but my body ticks away
Set adrift away from you, and I drift away from you
Those marks lay bare in the snows of last winter
My guts knotted like a cursive letter
Fox and hind stood in omen succession
And heavy storms raged over my youth
The gods were there and I took no heed
As I moved to speak it was of no use
Now I’ve fallen away from you
And I’ve buried my love from view
Now I’ve gone away from you
And I’ve torn our life in two
Away in the hills where the clouds settle in
Thick mists of night roll over the sky
The acorns rain hail from tan oaks
And bright burns the shining madrone
The hunter’s taught bow falls out of sight
The mounds of white thorns are sharp and steady
Dead in the wool these blankets wrap me
Rotting in moss beneath the trees
I yield to the peace of misery