At Tara

The hill exhales a damp, metallic breath,

its ridges scarred by centuries of rain;

the soil remembers coronation, death,

and presses bone to stone like wax to vein.

A socketed earth, it grips what it devours—

charred wood, dull blades, a ribcage folded thin;

the roots grow through the dark like prayerless hours,

their tendrils clutching marrow deep within.

I walk above, yet feel the weight below,

a body’s hush that will not let me pass;

the mound is grave, and yet it seems to glow,

a wound half-healed, still throbbing in the grass.

So hope and doubt braid tightly in this ground:

what dies is lost, yet somehow still is found.