Crimea River

...."And now what's left,

of hands that have given so freely, their fleeing warmth?

Bare against the instrument that soiled them.

Cursing the names of generations.

Faced down, but not unclaimed.

That spanned once the measure of empires.

Unfit to carry gentle things.

..........................

Cost.

Hands that built cathedrals to hoist Demigods above men who kneeled before them.

Wrought of chewed and mangled grit, they've survived where kings have fallen.

I stand now upon conquests that gasp in the blood and char of victory no more. Darkened in the shadow of shame. Cast upon heirs. The line, down.

No longer in fear of the haunting void I burned kingdoms to keep at bay. Offer me oblivion.

Dearest [December],

oh where you lay in silence,

grieved in your absence.

Where was I,

when they plotted your peril?

The assassin given task.

The night, warning.

Slow hands. Cold calm.

I recall now the swarthy widow,

hoping the sands of time to mean more than the emptiness of loss,

salt-fed and poured into the darkness of the Black Sea."