Silence, long held

in shuttered cities

Landscape pocked with bodies

Stale breath hovers

Piled high under common eye

the naked dead flow

A stream uninterrupted

in light of day

Rats stir, quiver

under sun’s unbidden pallor

Oh, muted hearts

through clasped hands glimmer

Shine!

Shine!

Steps falter

in halls long emptied

Dull gaze glistens

through shadowed cracks

Mask broken

Blood, across all shores

twined

By the fall

all are joined

Through red cloud’s haze

finger’s reach is met

All are joined

All are joined

Sight regained

In rooms now illumed

by fire’s shine

Swaying mass

by hymns restored

Up the luminous steps

Arisen from the ash they ascend

Up! Up!

Ascend!

By shards of sun scattered

Through dome hung with leaves

are anointed bowed heads

In this world of light