Beyond the trail of tears, where the cottonwoods sigh,
moonlight pools like blood in the cracked riverbed.
I still hear your hymn in the coal-darkened pines—
a ghost-note of hope that the smoke never shed.
We walked skin to sorrow, feet blistered by frost,
trading names for new numbers, our tongues left to rust.
But the drum in my ribs keeps the old rhythm yet,
calling home, calling home, through the iron and dust.