Mounted High Your Fortress

My love, i can see
Mounted high your fortress, majestic legacy of war.
Lit by moonlight, soft and eerie,
Its armour a deep shade of grey, walled high above the sodden land.

Encircled in deep waters, there you take rest alone,
Your lookout far from the touches of the armies which attempt to conquer you.
Driven here in time now forgotten,
Often you will sit with a blind eye, head lowered, your waking sleep a cosy blanket.

From your tower the view is beautiful, although a little far removed
High above, stars will watch over you peacefully.
On clearer days you have often imaged someone coming in the distance,
From that place you once called home.
An old, old friend, her footsteps sunk deep into the mud.

You have felt that the key which you have long held close
Is about to be offered to another,
And sure enough you are right.
Invisible hands wind up the chains, allow your visitor to gain entrance.
To join you in your empty palace, just for a little while.

Enraptured in remembrance you dine with her, rest with her,
It is wine, not blood which drips from the knife
Pillows are softened by sweet carresses
The emptiness of this place masked with your eye for detail

And in rooms where the walls have no pictures,
You allow her to speak of where she has come from.
That land of peace and beauty nigh unimaginable
Which you had long forgot.

But speak just a little, you say:
Too much and the pain of what is lost becomes too apparent
For you lived there once also,
Your place there lost to stronger forces within you.

You will her to stay, to accept the warm generosity of a welcoming host
Who has forgotten the nature of his environment
And for a while she agrees,
For rarely has she felt so welcome, so comfortable, so surrounded

Yet these walls are so high, so grey, so strong
Here she cannot sink her feet into the ground and let it cushion her voluntary falls.
Her privileged place in your tower allows her a view of the place from whence she came
Sparkling dimly in the distance, she knows that it is home.
And yet she knows also that no visit was as richly lived as this one.

And so he wakes to find her gone
Just a saddened shadow moving through a hidden door
And once more his walls become the bars of a prison self-constructed long ago
And as he sinks to his knees the cry is let out
Shattering the windows once clad shut
Anger rising from deep within his belly, lighting a spark within his soul

Pushing outwards it moves to all around
A ripple of fiery energy conquering all
Battlements are rased back to the ground from which they sprung
Burning long through the night