The Green Noose

Each day in the woebegone oak

Hangs the green noose.

Like the outline of a tear

It seems to drip with the brine

Water of desperation.

One day the last leaf departed

From the branches of the oak.

The noose looks guilty.

Now its shape is a sly smile

Like that of the moon, before

It drops from the sky

And shatters the downtrodden

With the shrapnel of fate.

Daily I walk by the green noose

And its very being seems to be

Some kind of horrible temptation

Like when one stands at the edge

Of a cliff and wonders what it would

Be like to fall off.

Yet, I walk onwards

Against the wind, which, animated

By the magic of the green noose

Attempts to pull me back

With its ghostly outstretched arms.

I walk until the memory of the wind

And sly smiles and green rope

Are purged from my soul

By life, which I choose.