Castaways

By shadowing

all the darkened fields

of forgotten words

and civilian lives

Through violence

through the changing guards

through the grinding away

and the furious marching

By gathering

the holy light

and weathering

a cast away life

and the rising fear

The hollowness

of the flags and gods

that are raised in the air

in the wake of their raging

Your skinny arms

hold a lantern up

on the brightest array

of the stars in their moorings

and summoning

the holy light

on their citadels

the blackening sky

the collapsing sun, the burning wall

that approaches our eyes.

You live again

in the shuddering light

of these images

this valediction:

you are running from a rising tide

you are castaways