The leaden moonlit bough

Swayed and collared high

A chairless shadow,

Shrouding men with

Hollow eyes;

Black as the breath

Of the stars, he hung,

Where men clothed in the silver of

Withering grass

Encircled and sang,

Holding their hands

To the fiery cross;

Lamenting the rope

That they lost

I only learned about this tonight, but apparently there was a lynching a few years ago, in a small mountain town near mine. The K.K.K got ahold of a black man living there, and they hung him out on a tree during one of their rituals. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I wanted to make this in his memory, whoever that man was.