Flowers Beside the Sword

For finding an old sword still standing in the ground beneath a crumbling stone arch, rusted where it was left. Whose it was, and why they never came back, no one can say. You lay the single flower you have carried all this way at the foot of the hilt. Celtic harp harmonics and an alto recorder sing a rising line that warm strings catch in a lower register, a little brighter each time it returns. A faint modal lift colors the A minor, never quite naming the sorrow, and only the white of the flower remains.