Sentinel

Epoch perennial
Unending burial
Sentry of the land
A lord with no command
On hallowed ground

A chieftain once revered for his knowledge of the land
Provider turned to prey with a twitch of nature’s hand

A peril unforeseen by the writing in the stars
Similaun as a tomb opens ceremonial scars

The day was rife with possibility
The smell of carrion on the wind
A figure breached the soft tranquility
A copper arrow breached the skin

Death-addled yet demands to fight
The rogue tyrolean from the north
A smooth release, the killing blow
The world of watchers beckons him home

Time becomes a child’s game
Millennia to stake his claim
And still he has command of sight
Keeper of the rocks and rain

Aeons pass before his eyes
As generations turn to mist
A seer rooted to the clay
Prophesied to preexist
Blighted by command of sight
A nameless witness of the earth
The wisdom of a thousand lives
Relegated to the dirt

Gods above! Forgive me!
Let them find their own way
And release me to my dreams

Aphonic the refrain
And here he will remain
Doyen of the wind and snow and rain

If forever could be drawn
The eternal pantheon
A palette made of rock and blood and bone

A sentence served in ice
A silent sacrifice
Omniscience lost with every new sunrise

Enshrined in land’s expense
A consecrated trance
Devoid of recompense