Sparkatale

The Watchtower

 

In a wasted land,

There lies a plain,

Buried deep in ancient wreckage,

Where the night remains

Through passing days,

In freezing harshness.

 

And midway across

The barren vastness

Lies a crumbling tower,

Where a ghostly figure

Stares in silence

At the ruins far below.

 

And through that wreckage

Wades a figure,

With broken soul

And battered mind,

Through shards that cut

In stinging pains

Through wounds still somehow fresh.

 

The injured traveller

Gazes up from the base

Of the old watchtower,

The ghost at the summit

Gazes back, and both

Lie frozen, unspeaking.

 

The traveller begins to speak

From some reserve,

Who knows how,

Yet the ghost keeps on

Its silent watch

Through days, or months, that pass.

 

And, though the traveller rests and heals,

It stares still up at the ghost,

And the ghost stares back,

As ages pass, as nightfall stretches

Ever on, amid the struggling moonlight.

 

Do you watch in silence,

Oh ghostly one,

For some heroic quest,

Did you watch still on

In days gone by,

When a world began to fade?

 

Do you watch in silence,

Oh ghostly one,

From high up on your tower,

Set high above the lonely plains

Piled high with celestial fragments?

 

Did you watch still on,

Though an age had passed,

And many braved what you could not

Amid the looming wreckage?

 

Do you keep your silent watch

In hope of coming valour,

Or do you stay there frozen

In the fear that gripped you as

You set yourself

So high above the world?

 

Do you keep your watch eternally,

Though some pour soul cries out

From out amid the devastation

Of those endless plains?

 

The traveller extends a hand

Toward the crumbling watchtower,

And hopes the ghost will follow,

And some peace may somehow come,

From all the ages and ages of pain.

 

What say you now,

Oh ghostly one,

Set high up on that tower,

Will you keep the sun from rising,

As the night stays ever on?

 

And through the coming hours of night,

Oh ghostly one upon your tower,

Will you stand there frozen

As the ages pass,

Will your watch still be so endless?

 

31/3/19