Castaways

By shadowing
All the darkened fields
Of forgotten words
And civilian lives

Violence
Through the changing guards
Through the grinding away
And 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 are raised in the air
In the wake of their raging

Your skinny arms
Hold the lantern up
On the brightest array
Of the stars in their moorings

And summoning
The holy light down
On citadels
The blackening sky

Collapsing sun
The burning wall
That approaches our eyes

You live again
In the shuddering light
These images
This valediction

You are running from
A rising tide
You are castaways