The Shelter

Who made the curious shelter that we found?

The bloody chamber formed of flesh and bones

The white stockade of ribs raised from the ground

There at the forest edge. Why not piled stones?

Why not the branches, leaves or creepers there?

The bloody chamber formed of flesh and bones

Could have been made, more easily, more fair.

Greener and growing to the eye, and scent

Why not the branches, leaves or creepers there?

Was this form chosen, for the message sent?

That this was death's own shelter, for life's end?

Greener and growing to the eye, and scent

A bower suggests the spring and does not tend

To chill the blood as meat and bones that say

That this was death's own shelter, for life's end?

Better we'd drowned 'er we had seen that day.

Who made the curious shelter that we found?

To chill the blood as meat and bones that say

"The white stockade of ribs raised from the ground."