Shadows of the eternal night were hiding beyond the darkness,
Veiled dreams coiling, drifting on winds so cold,
Lost secrets tangled in webs of sorrowed stillness.
The stars retired, their light consumed in a dimmed haze,
Where spectres roamed through time-worn graves,
And ancient oaths in hollow whispers praised.
Each flower upon this hexed soil bore tales,
Of souls long bound to sorrow’s endless plights,
Where hope decayed, and love’s fair visage paled.
Soft reveries became just faded vestiges,
And scepticism obliterated every dream and desire,
In a realm of brutality where beauty and magnificence were replaced by platitude.
Beneath the nocturnal veil where promise hovered,
Resided the sighs of anguish, drawn and lost,
In silent mourning, under a moonless sky.
Forgotten rhymes drifted like autumn leaves,
Their faint sorrows lingered in the void,
Bound by fate, in nights that never cleaved.
Ghostly guises disclosed tales upon the mist,
Of fragile lives now tethered to regret,
In shadows ruling ominously whenever light and passions desisted.
Ancient idols crumbled, haunted by decay,
Their marbled stares held secrets left untold,
A vigil kept for dawn that slipped away.
The wind lamented in hollow, cadenced tones,
Its chilling gusts were a requiem for hope,
Where life withdrew, and death in darkness honed.
The trees, with their dreary branches gnarled and bare,
They were sentinels cast in the eerie twilight gloom,
Witnesses to pain none could ever repair.
Beneath the roots weaved webs of betrayal,
Embracing misery, sealing completely dead vows,
In earth-bound glooms, cursed and locked within.
Each stone was engraved with words no vernacular may utter,
A silent litany for spirits confined,
By time’s cruel decree, eternally they sought.
Shadows of the eternal night lingered, ruling among ruins and mournings,
Where all was torn from life and love,
And nothing remained bound to light or worlds unseen.
Esther Elizabeth Racah