The Soldier’s Twilight in Eldermoor Wood
A weary soul treads paths where shadowed whispers surge,
His uniform, once bright as dawn’s resplendent hue,
Now hangs in tattered shrouds of twilight’s somber glue.
The forest breathes a chill that gnaws his marrow deep,
Where gnarled roots like serpents twist from haunted sleep,
And every leaf that rustles sings a mournful tune
Of promises dissolved beneath the bloodied moon.
“O Eldermoor!” he cries, “thy boughs once knew my vow—
To return with honor’s flame upon my fevered brow,
To clasp again the hands that blessed my farewell day,
Yet here I stand, a specter clad in war’s decay.”
No echo answers but the wind’s derisive sigh,
As memories swarm like phantoms ‘neath the sulfur sky:
A comrade’s laughter drowned in cannon’s thunderous roar,
A letter sealed with tears, now ash on foreign shore.
Three winters past, beneath this very oak’s embrace,
He swore to guard the hearth, its sanctity and grace,
With iron clasped upon his heart and fervent tongue—
An oath that war’s sharp scythe hath severed, rank and young.
The tree now bears a scar where blade met bark that night,
A crimson fissure weeping amber sap to light,
While through its branches moans a voice both frail and dire:
“Thou treadst on broken faith, thou kindledst funeral pyre.”
He stumbles where the brook runs black with ancient spite,
Its waters whisper secrets that corrode the light:
“See how the marsh-lights dance where loyal footsteps strayed,
They guide but souls unburdened by the debts unpaid.”
There, through the mist, a shape in tarnished armor gleams,
A mirrored face contorted in half-remembered dreams—
“Brother,” it rasps, “why bloomed our courage turned to frost?
Why thrives the thorn where love’s pure roses we had crossed?”
The soldier falls to knees ensnared in thorn and rue,
His hands, once steady, tremble as the ghastly view
Unfolds a spectral host—their eyes like smoldered coal,
Each gaze a weight to crush his resurrected soul.
“Forgive,” he pleads, “the fields where valor turned to ash,
The cries I drowned in thunder’s blast, the futile clash—
I kept no pledge but survival’s bitter, gnawing creed,
While friendship’s garden perished for another’s greed.”
The wood grows still. The air congeals to liquid jet.
A crown of wilted laurels materializes yet
Above his brow, its petals crumbling into dust
That stings his sight with truths all mortals learn to trust:
No hero’s welcome waits where self-deception reigns,
No laurels bloom when honor bleeds from venal veins.
The oaken scar splits wide—a maw of sap and rue—
And drags him down where roots drink deep of sorrow’s brew.
Now travelers whisper when the harvest moon hangs low,
Of howling winds that shape a name they dare not know,
Of bark that bleeds when autumn strips the forest bare,
And shadows clutching tattered cloth of military wear.
The elders say the wood remembers every oath
That frailty broke beneath despair’s unyielding wroth—
There, where the earth sustains no bloom, nor bird, nor bee,
The soldier’s twilight waltz endures eternally.
Thus ends the tale of valor’s price in war’s cruel game,
Where shattered vows and haunted groves brand men with shame.
Let those who pass by Eldermoor’s oppressive glen
Beware the weight of words that bind the souls of men,
For even steel and fire, which raze both town and throne,
Yield to the frost that eats a heart turned stone alone.
In every rustle, hear his plea through branches torn:
“All oaths are chains—abandon hope, ye who are born.”
