David MurphyChurch Bell
The air’s dead in the cemetery.
Unmoving, the Spanish moss drapes
like monks’ robes in a monastery
in that gliding Reaper’s shape.
Live oaks stand as still as lead.
A sound. Through glossed air comes a knell:
sliding like glaze, sticking like dread,
conducting a new soul to its stone cell.
The Mountain
There stands the snow-capped mountain, grave and bleak.
At the mountain’s foot are crows, black as coal;
hard-won triumph awaits you at the peak.
The dawn of the trial holds its mystique:
a challenge to pioneers who are bold.
There stands the snow-capped mountain, grave and bleak.
The trailblazer starts with certain technique,
but must break himself to make himself whole:
hard-won triumph awaits you at the peak.
By dusk of the trial, the sun seems weak.
The long day has grown dark, starless, and cold.
There stands the snow-capped mountain, grave and bleak.
But fight on, through the pain, the doubt, and shrieks.
Fight on, through the dismantling of your soul.
Hard-won triumph awaits you at the peak.
Keep hope inside when you’re too tired to speak,
and pay with your spirit every steep toll.
There stands the snow-capped mountain, grave and bleak.
Hard-won triumph awaits you at the peak.
