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I Held You While You Slept

I held you while you slept
When years upon you yet had crept,
When faith anew was baby blue
And promise hung unkept.
A loaded crown I reached to claim,
But not the charge with which it came,
As baffled king to trailing prince,
Take care to lose my crooked steps.
 
I laid you on the ground,
As winter raged and woods surround,
You’ll hear my call when summer falls,
A faint and foreign sound.
For now the hand holds not the son,
But rusted arms and beaten drum,
As phantom king to orphaned prince,
Crave not the fiend who holds the crown.
 
A cry upon the wind
That gales to shake my distant sins,
The crippled roar of open sores
And long discarded things.
As infant lungs grow bold and broad,
To claim the arms that father bore,
As shaken king to slighted prince,
I named the sword you’ve come to swing.
 
I find you now, a man,
A solid sight of truth and plan,
As far from me as land from sea
And the sunken words I sang.
Now that a seed sits small in palm,
Know now the shock to be disarmed,
As ruined sire to risen king,
Set still your drum and down your arms.

(2015)

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