Abtei Im Eichwald (For Caspar David Friedrich) Poem by Paul Kesler

Branching,
the roots of agony
climb to the heavens;
the broken husk
of autumn
lingers in their veins.

Tentacles of sacrifice
conjoin with the blood
of sunset -
their black tongues
gossip in the wind.

I have seen men totter
when mist hangs a
noose round the neck of
their designs,
when dry leaves scatter through
archways
like the tattered coats of
ancestors
murdered by their grief.

I have seen black shadows
turn to ghosts as you watch them;
their gradual faces scrawled
against the palimpsest of night,
lingering at entrances
hovering at windows.

We carry forth the missions
of our lord,
though who that lord may be
we lost sight of long ago.
He vanished somewhere
no one can trace,
not in the nethermost
corridors that wind through
dust and stone.

Our Lord may be the Lord
of Ruins,
Who hides His face in the
rain and fog,
whose death, perhaps,
spawned the minions of those
who prowl these gates and
stairways:
the stone paths of righteousness.

Whose death, perhaps,
spawned us, His
acolytes
to pray for the release
of all the woven specters
who prowl the ancient
alleys
of the dark oak wood.