Welcoming Committee

The monuments devoutly stand
upon that brooding gated hill,
an honor guard morosely grand,
their stony faces waiting still.

As raucous ravens congregate
to form an inauspicious flock,
they also sit and calmly wait
beside that stark forbidding rock.

I sympathize with their suspense,
made leery by the bleak unknown,
but now I rest outside the fence
no longer scared to be alone.