The song’s hearth turned into a cold dungeon
of oblivion. Yes, the words are the tinder for its fire,
but the mold that silenced them after long years
denies them bringing forth a single morsel of a meal
when lavish toasts go swiftly round in brimming cups.

Cries and screams instead echo in the blighted air
where birds have no right of passage, nor beauty thrives –
it shrank like a sickly spring, its blood-flow clogged,
a werewolf drinks it and waves its tail with a rusted snarl,
snatching all that makes sense, its golden fleece dense.

The song’s hearth speaks with those who carry
their own marble funeral busts on their backs,
and we lack courage to say a modest “thank you” to them,
to breathe out a whiff of courage unto their quiet quills
and scare off sorrow and silence from their auras.

You stand before it and summon the good spirits
of the word, reviving the cold flames of their frail wings –
newborn monarchs winging from behind the cold stars.