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Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast, |
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He looks into the future and remembers what is past, |
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Wonders what he's doing on this battlefield, |
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Shrugs to his shadow, impatient, too proud yet to kneel. |
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In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain; |
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Smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again, |
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Free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe, |
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Leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home. |
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And it's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone. |
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Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow, |
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Wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes |
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Leaving spoor to mark his passage, trace his weary climb. |
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Cross the moor and make the headland; stumbling, wayward, blind. |
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In the end his footprints extend as one single line. |
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This latest exponent of heresy is goaded into an attack, |
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Persuaded to charge at his enemy. |
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Too late, he knows that it is, too late now to turn back, |
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Too soon by far to falter. |
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The pass sits uneasily at his rear, |
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He's walking right into the trap. |
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Surrounded, but striving through will and fear. |
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Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade |
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But the dice slip through his fingers |
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And he's living from day to day, |
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Carrying his world around upon his back, |
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Leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale of his track. |
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He will not be hostage, he will not be slave, |
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No snare of past can trap him, though the future may. |
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Still he runs and burns behind him in advanced retreat; |
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Still his life remains unfettered; he denies defeat. |
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It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone. |
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Leave the past to burn; at least that's been his own. |
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Scorched earth, that's all that's left when he's done; |
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Holding nothing but beholden to no one |
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Claiming nothing, out of no false pride, he survives. |
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Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen |
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Of a man who entered the course of a dream, |
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Claiming nothing but the life he's known |
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This, at least, has been his own. |
