Battleground

Suddenly the trail comes to an abrupt end,
And the paths that through the bushes wend
Stop, lying in pitiful view like halved snakes.
The earth beyond this place in barenness wakes.

The bushes that crown this small hill have no leaves,
And neither does the tree that after all this time grieves
Silent and stoic, without the leafy tears to down-rain,
The sign that it should have as indicator of pain.

The hill rises, bare and black, by lightning seared,
Or so someone would whisper if no one feared
That something far more powerful happened here.
Sometimes silencer, sometimes awakener, fear.

The earth here, though black as soil of the Nile,
Has not given life, and will not, for a long while.
The evidence mounts and mounts for a strike of fire,
Though what kind would not use the tree for its pyre?

There is no sunshine here; there almost never is.
And as for a place of God, as it once was-
There is no trace of anything heavenly or holy
In this ground that arid death bears solely.

Once a small church crowned this aching place;
Once to a small town God showed his smiling face.
Once shining white stone from a far quarry
Rose here to give comfort to the dying and wary.

Once- but the once has gone the way of once.
Now the wind is the only hunter that hunts
Around the bald place, and at times sings complaints 
Where voices rose high in praise of the saints.

There is no water; there is no grass.
There is no sign of tumbled stone, or shattered glass.
Of course the place transformed long years ago
From a place belovéd to where none dare go.

But still there should be something, should be a sign,
To tell of the place where there was bread and wine,
To tell of a place where children laughed and played,
Racing outside while their parents prayed.

There is nothing. The tumbled, separated dirt
Lies still, with not a touch of footstep or skirt.
The bushes that surround it are brown,
And the single tree cannot cast its leaves down.

Even while it is summer elsewhere in the wood,
Here comes no peering green leaf to try and do good.
Even while winter blankets the ground with soft snow,
Only the dregs and dross of autumn this place will know.

The bushes reach out with twisted fingers,
As if to catch anyone who in curiosity lingers.
But no one comes here anymore, and not only because
There is nothing to see, and it is not as it was.

There is something to see, they whisper and start,
On the nights when the moon is full, or it is dark.
On the full moon nights a sparkling light shines and runs
About this place, glowing like a hundred thousand suns.

Radiance pours through the boughs of the tree,
And though how anyone could know is a mystery,
The ghosts of summer leaves supposedly appear.
All the night turns triumphant; there is God's grace here.

There is something to see, they whisper and start,
On the nights when the moon is full, or it is dark.
Darkness blankets the woodland when the moon is new,
And in the morning the ground is warm, without dew.

Darkness there is a of a thousand million nights,
Darkness that has never known the meaning of lights.
There is soft laughter, and in this place light shuns,
Come the murmur of flutes, and the feet of goblins.

But in the day or at half-moon, crescent waxing, waning,
There is less evidence for what the locals are claiming.
There is the barrenness, and there is the sheer
Slightly hopeless fact that a church was here.

But as to what happened to it? That question is stopped,
Whenever someone comes looking, and feels dropped
Into a place that is not evil, but nor is it good.
Swiftly or slowly they will turn, and leave the wood.

Perhaps there was a battle; perhaps only lightning
Descended from heaven to make this place frightening.
Perhaps there was a battle, of God against Someone;
And though the light did not lose, it was forced to run.