I traveled through a windswept waste

Wide weary, dreary-hued and beauty-bare,

When in that bitter, lonely place

A form arrested, held my stare.

It rose to just above my height –

A pole with battered board atop

That shivered in the biting wind

But bade me, even still, to stop

And gaze in hunger at its face:

Wood scarred with etchings deep and old

That spoke in silence of that place…

Drove out its harsh and empty cold.

At last I turned back to the waste

But knew now that I tread upon

A path another soul had faced

And passed. I could continue on.