Castaways

By shadowing

All the darkened fields

Of forgotten words

And civilian lives

Through violence

Through the changing guards

Through the grinding away

Of their furious marching

By gathering the holy light

And weathering

A castaway life

And the rising fear

The hollowness

Of the flags and gods

That were 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 down

On citadels

And 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