Handmade Cross

I was walkin through the darkness on a cold and lonely night
The shadows gripped at everything and held them from my sight
The trees gave way to moonlight on the hills beyond my gaze
And my eyes caught sight of something there in the foggy midnight haze

The air was damp the night was cold and quiet deathly still
I climbed up through the grey moonlight and stood upon that hill
What I’d seen from down below before me now did lay
It was a handmade cross with stones around to mark a six foot grave

The cross was rough and made of wood a worn and weathered pine
Bound together tightly with bits of wire and twine
The weeds grew up between the stones that marked that narrow grave
And I wondered who so long ago had in this ground been laid

We know now what became of him, but not from where he came
Were his last days filled with loneliness with sorrow or with pain
And who was left behind to grieve and make this humble tomb
And who has come before me to his place of final doom

How did he make his way in life will in death he do the same
Was his soul possessedof goodness of sorrow or of shame
And does this cross above him mean he was a christian man
Or did he believe this earthly death for him would mean the end

I stood there in the silence and felt a deathly chill
Wonderin’ if my own short life could end upon some hill
With noone left behind to make a place for me to lay
With a handmade cross and stones around to mark a six foot grave