Charcoal

"Keep moving," I said as I ran through the town

with both my feet treading on wet, grimy ground.

The people behind me looked hopeless and dead

with each of their faces contorted with dread.

We ran down the alley, pursued by the guard,

who mistakenly thought it was us who had marred

the great chapel at Queensreach with coal dark as night

and now we made rounds round the town in our flight.

Into the countryside, into the fields,

each of the farmers all counting their yields

of the new autumn's harvest of ripe honeydew.

Through this expanse, our cavalcade flew:

chased by the guardsmen on horseback with bow

they tore through our numbers; their arrows did sow

great discontent among men and their needs

who knew that this blood would not nourish their seeds.

Seeds that they planted to feed the guardsmen,

who slaughtered the children, pinning them in

the warm summer's dirt, hard-tilled by the ox,

but soon they'd be lying in their own wooden box

lowered six feet beneath the wet, grimy ground

by the guardsmen that killed them, in the middle of town

beside of the chapel all blackened with soot

by vandals not chased through the alleys on foot.

We all died that day for a simple mistake,

and now we lie buried, never to wake.

So don't lift a hand if in it lays coal,

or forever you'll lay in the ground, you poor soul.