Redwood

Redwood is part of The Tall Trees Trilogy, also featuring companion pieces, Blackwood and Wildwood.

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The Sisters of Mercy “Lucretia My Reflection”

Cut me to the bone
And I shall bleed so you can see
That I am every feeling shown
That I am every waking dream
I shall forever make it known
That I mean every word I speak
Feel free to cut me to the bone
And I shall bleed

Within the mercy of defeat
I claimed my greatest ever victory
Mine had been a fate I had awaited most predictably
Dignity was all I had to counter woe so ironclad
That I required the withstand of contingency to breathe
Cut me to the bone
And I shall bleed so you can see
The jagged edges
Desperate measures gifted me
The tattered wings that lifted me
Above the clouds
When all fall down
Appeared the only closing wish permitted me
Within the mercy of defeat
There came epiphany
Epitomizing enterprise to prize that which seemed obliged to belittle me
Bittersweet tears were my free souvenirs
Every one of them stung
As I came then undone
While unfavorably spun
I remained the outcome
Of a history of many hundred years

There were fears
There were jeers
There were voices interfering
There were choices yet to make
To fame a wounded cavalier in death’s abate
For the sake of my emancipate
I strode forth to the great gate
And awaited reawakening
Placating my decay rate
With cuirass flayed wide open
Every pain became unspoken
And the heart that bled
Shed no remorse
That owed to being broken

Cut me to the bone
To know the essence kept within
And I shall bleed so you can see
That I am every feeling shown
That I am every leisured dream
I shall forever make it known
That I mean every word I speak
Feel free to cut me to the bone
And I shall bleed
I stand full grown
All on my own
I am a tree