Before I Got There
John Darnielle
The acrid smell of burning branches
The relics all in ruin
Broken blades atop the altar
Cheap substitutions
And the tapestry above
Torn down, trampled, then re-hung
Now illegible forever
An oracle with no tongue
All of this
All of this
All of this before I got there
And in a pit behind the altar
The bodies of the fallen
Heavy tracks up to the lip
Just to prove that they were crawling
Faces turned toward the sky
That they would never see again
Victims of the fallout
I have failed you
Sweet, young men
All of this
All of this
All of this before I got there