Highlander
The sun burned against
Crumbling twig huts that hid
The warrior
Waiting for the enemy that would never come. His straggled and clumped mane
Clung to his brazen face
Lips parched, searching for a drop; but that
Is unheard of in this mountain of the Scots.

He threw down his sickle to plow
For a claymore to wield
Now the crops wither away in their last winter
Waiting for the enemy that would never come.

This is the Queen’s land
She is a spiteful lover
Delicate long fingers dipped in crimson
Thrusting toward the village’s path.

Twigs smolder to ash, leaving a wake
In the madness, dirks planted in the frozen earth
But the warrior is
No longer waiting.

He tears through broken brush
Kilt of emerald, ruby, gold
Swelling behind him
The fearless one.

They hear his thudded footsteps in the wood,
Draw their swords from the earth,
And launch into the thicketed thorns
Ready to take the mountain.

With a cavernous roar he held his honor high
He drove it into the enemy
Thrack swish thrack swash
Hacking down the wood.

In this distance was the mounting lull of bagpipes
As the warrior beat down each barbarian
Like a sheep-skinned drum
Pounding into the earth, the corpses.

Standing, the lion now alone, he drops his blade
And follows it
A brave heart he was,
Gone.
…
…
…
The barren soil has fled and left ginger blossoms
To bury the forgotten battlefield
As the clan has left its mountain home
Toward flat plains