Look at me now, what do you see?
Am I the Beast that makes you scream,
the ragged face that haunts your dreams,
the voice inside the hanging tree?

What have I done to earn these bands?
This plastic bent on quiet hands,
a rope to cut and still my blood,
to speed me now to dust and mud.

Oh, if only you could see your eyes,
to know what they have set inside;
the fire to take my will to breathe,
to bind me here beneath the tree.

Look at you now.
What have you become?
Were you always this way?
Were you always this way?

Yet to the East there lumbers still
that crumbling dome of stone and sill;
a trunk of burnt and broken wood
laid bare by lightning on the hill.

Oh, is that where you’d see me hang,
there, on the ground where it began?
Well as I swing, I’ll make you see
that you can’t take my voice from me:

Look up here, friend, and watch me bleed!
Am I the Beast that makes you scream,
the ragged face that haunts your dreams,
the voice inside the hanging tree?

Or am I just a mirror, friend,
a looking glass that has no end?
From this maw your rage will spend
the fear of self that dwells within.

But how can love be so construed?
By twist of word and rape of truth,
the Fox that comes at night to croon
will steal your eggs to feed his brood.

So cry out to your gods above,
that maybe they would learn to love.
That maybe they would see our pain.
That maybe they would say, “Enough.”

Look at us now.
What have we become?
Were we always this way?
Were we always this way?

– Thomas LaVoy

**Note: all poems are best viewed on desktop, laptop or tablet to preserve intended line breaks**

The text for Hanging Tree, the third track of Triptych: Pandemic, was written as a response to the events of January 6th, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

This poem is not available for use by composers. To commission a new text for use in a musical score, or for any other occasion, please visit my poetry page.