A Fratricide

See you not the brand of sin
over my eye hewn grey
as my hand is rendered black
with abundance of blood
with this hand I slew him
he who was chosen by God
with this hand I ended him
he who was Lilith's prey
so step thee not my soil upon
lest thee be accursed in thy generations

See above her perch
gnarled as a claw
when there was peace on my head
I fathered as a sapling
where my seed did fall
whence this raven
the mistress of another god
my sentinel now
these years have been

But a wounded creature
I bound her wing
and gave her a place
my breast within
as it grew strong
she perched there
and would not leave me
she spied my wrath
and my action
and she did not judge me

And now the skin of that tree
has grown cracked
its branches that once lightened the heavens
its roots that once nourished the earth
this tree that future souls might fashion
the gate of death
the ladder of life

And yet my sentinel remains
has it been a thousand years
a thousand soon too full to count
a thousand grains of salt weigh
heavy on the scales of my soul

I fear that when this tree
is seeded for death
the black bird flown
and then and only then
will I stand hands empty
before my Lord and father's maker
and then and only then
my brother before
and I as all men
faced with the evil done
by his own hand
and faced by that same evil
and the demons that follow him
the travellers who wander
the limbo of the soul
a thousand times as death
follows death all the days
of our lives
as if by another my own judge
shall i be and condemned
I shall and must be untill the end
of days...

O see you not the tear of myrrh
In my eye hewn red as Judas' beard

"But the mark is lifted
and the bird has flown
O walk with me a while
dear brother for it has been
so very long..."