LATE SENTINELS

LATE SENTINELS

LATE SENTINELS

How would they know whether
they’re coming or going
as they swish that way and this
in such fierce weather,
 
those winter trees between
the window and the lake,
those snappy ashes
and that steadfast evergreen,
 
its ivy clinging on for life?
The tips of Sitka spruces bend
like sailboats in a storm at sea.
Sturdy sceptres, emblems of strife.
 
Shrubs stand unshaken in the shelter
of an alcove, under eaves.
Late sentinels – their woodland
cousins flurry in a welter
 
of distress as when in fright
we start awake and worry
where we are. We scan the nap
by lightning’s light.
 
And so to whom now will we turn,
now that the long nights
lean on us? Now who or what
will guide us as they burn,
 
those fires of house and hearth,
in guttery flickers?
As if there were no end to plenty
we plundered earth.
 
Where are they now, those chaste priestesses
who tended embers born from Troy
and kept them lighting year on year
for centuries? For anyone who transgresses
 
nothing worse than the shame –
not even the mandatory sentence,
that became our task and duty. We had
their trust. They held us as protectors of the flame.