Shunned At A Funeral - Something Death Forgot

I entered where the timber bends, where
Light is taught to kneel.
A thousand
Paths in quiet war between the false and real.
The ground remembered every step
I'd ever tried to hide, and branches
Whispered older names
I learned to walk beside
Each mile was sown with borrowed
Breath, each choice an arrow in the scene.
The forest dressed in borrowed gold and shed it like a dream
I sang to keep the dark at bay
I sang to name the truth, unknowing
Every note
I gave was bending time
In two
The birds fell still, the air grew thin
The road refused to rise, and something
Waited where the light was learning how
To die
He stepped from shadow
Robed in calm.
No rattle blade or flame
Unarmed, he made of ending soft
A patience carved in name.
His voice was
A winter without storm.
His
Smile a settled death.
He spoke as if
The dust itself had never learned regret
You've wandered long," he said to me
As all the breathing do.
I've
Counted every oath you broke and every
Good you knew
I keep what's earned.
I close
The book.
I salt the page with time
Eternity is mine to give and yours is only mine
You named my nights, my hidden
Loves, the debts
I could not pay.
He
Spoke as if the weight of truth was
Final in its say, was final in its say
You and were all your kind must end.
I
Am the truest or no alter saves
No crown can claim what breath was
Borrowed for.
The forest always feeds
The soil as singer feeds the ground.
I
Am the silence after sound, the lost that won't be found
I felt the ache of every sin
Rise honest in my chest, yet something
Burned beneath his words that would not
Let them rest.
For in his voice
Was ancient fear disguised as measured
Law, a confidence that sounded
Learned, but learned before a flaw
I saw it then, his hands still shook.
Though centuries had passed as if
He'd missed a moment once that still
Outpaced him fast.
So I drew
Breath where breath was thin and spoke
Not loud but clear, the way one names a
Shadow wall so light can interfere
You speak of ends," I said to him, "of a ledger sealed in time, but you're forgetting something, Death
You've never been alone.
There was a
Night you did not win, a dawn you could
Not keep, a borrowed tomb, an empty
Slab, a silence cut too deep
You thought the lamb was just like me
Another soul to claim.
You did
Not know you touched a king who stepped
Inside your name.
He didn't fight you
With a sword nor curse you into dust.
He
Let you take him your word then
Broke you with your trust.
You swallowed
Him like all the rest, but grace has
Sharper teeth and what you thought was
Final breath was resurrection's grief
The forest or the dark stepped
Back, the road learned how to rise, and death stood still, not roaring loud
Just smaller in his eyes.
I
Passed him then, still singing soft, my
Shadow no longer his.
For death had
Learned too late one truth, my king had ended him
And though he walks and whispers still
His throne is only air
A room fitting in the light of life he cannot bear