The Loss

Snow touched the pines

Long before the shadow

Of night stretched eagerly

Over the mountains.

.

Stone-blue eyes stared

Across the land, once his own,

Now soiled with blood and ash

And no small amount of death.

.

The empty fight was over.

Enemies and allies, dead.

Their bodies polluted the dirt,

Turned the rivers red.

.

Long strands of black hair,

Curled, wet with blood,

And streaked grey with age

Shifted in the wind.

.

He didn't want this.

There was a body in the sea

Of decaying flesh that should not

Have ever been there.

.

There was a body whose litheness

Belonged in a different grave.

It belonged underneath oak trees

Where it could rot and feed the moss.

.

But war was no picky thing

And it had taken the elegance,

Stripped the passion from its soul

And hollowed out its bones.

.

Cold air struck fiercely against his face.

This was a loss, a colossal failure.

A war won but at the cost

Of something beautiful and ethereal.

.

Something that could not be gained,

Or replicated, or created.

Tears sprung to the darkening eyes.

He'd killed his best friend.

___________________

Happy New Year! Holiday break from writing is over :)