The gallows stand where we should be;
The warrant for our death is signed,
Persia’s, unchangeable, declare
The date and nature of our death.
The gallows stand before us.
The gallows stand where we should be;
And yet another hangs instead –
Death reversed, mourning turned
To holiday, the victim now victor.
The punishment stands reversed.
The mourners stand among us,
Their downcast eyes raised up.
All the dread of certain death
Gone! The predetermined desert death,
Reversed and gone.
For at the gallows, put up for us,
All the laws against us signed
And stamped and sealed and hammered to
The gallows posts where now one stands
Where we dead ones should all be.
The Consolations of Writing 