A rune on an ash-wood tree

Along a wooded path in forest of memory

There lies a knife-carved rune upon an ash-wood tree

Berkana, there below the silver rosaries

And the red-green-gold of falling autumn leaves

The dead leaves wet and slick underfoot, and branches bare

Cold greeting for the shadow of the memory’s traveler there

As he took a knee beneath the ash-wood tree, despair

For he found only bones in that forest of memory

Only broken bones, and silent nights, and empty air