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