The Tender Ember Poem by Edmund V. Strolis

Oh blessed moon please guide her home, moonbeams please show the way.
She crosses the wilderness alone, where the village's ancestors lay.
Two harvest moons ago she lost her and twin sisters now were one.
Two stories told to tell her fate, would her song now be sung?

Shadows danced on every tree blade, wicked rhythmic digits coaxed and beckoned her on.
Twisted light and tattered limbs! now frozen still in terror, her path you see, was gone.
And if she hoped that moon would save her she knew at heart that she was wrong.
For clouds in league with satan's wishes, rehearsed her forest requiem.

What now is one to do? when east is west and south is upward falling.
When black proves too hopeful and is abandoned to the inner scars of doubt.
What prayer could pierce the cloak of doom and silence the voices calling?
When pleas are masked with the howls of angels that heaven has cast out.

Her crime and contrast was innocence, she was all that was decent and good.
Blessed were the lives that she brightened by loving every minute she could.
The heart now a delirious drum, her nostrils flaring and eyes wild staring.
Coal tongue and cinder eyes, her knees buckled at the weight she was carrying.

Her skin now wed the dust, below the pit of hell a portal never ending grew.
Yet pure evil had no power against a hint of a spark from a young chIld's heart.
That tender ember may seem small to some but what wonders a loving soul can do.
Her song on this night was yet to be sung, for her tiny light came shining through.