When I looked out and saw the sky to the distant faraway north,
I did not understand the spectrum of colour, the rainbow of blue.
I rubbed my eyes and gazed again. At first I snarled and I spat.
Then I crouched and calmed myself, when no harm came of it.
I had only been brought up from down below to push the stone, in
the land of browns and greys, of smoke and choking liquid fumes,
We all were sniveling and agonised in the shadows of our doom.
My skin was coated by the ash. My senses sharp, harsh volcanic.
*
I am like the other cave troll. I remember his lonely grey prison,
he who knew no end to pain and no beginning aside from pain.
There was no escape from his sad chain, where the cave floor
shuddered and was smashed, or his little eyes that were angry
and beady and almost saw before he was killed, after he almost
killed them all. So it is said. He had a sad start, he was not loved.
He was better off to be touched by the sun and turned to stone.
But daylight does not break inside the broken heart gone down
into the night, that flows like rivers of gloom and takes me ever
further into pain that never ends. But there is a gate I work upon.
*
They have harnessed the energy of midnight, but the daylight
is coming from afar across Dagorlad and by the marshes of the
dead and stirring, I saw the great light coming. I smelt the mist of
the bile green mountain and the old trees that awoke and creaked
and groaned, from the wilds of a world that sang here no longer.
It touched me, but warily at first, as if from a dream once known
its scent was faint, but brutal as thunder. I did not understand why
I knew what I did, as there was neither trust nor hope left in us.
I thought it was a trick from Minus Morgul come to reveal me.
But I was a silent moat. I allowed that light to enter unnoticed.
*
Every time I pushed that gate my tethers were further loosened.
The daylight broke inside me and I went to my huge ugly knees.
It was around this time when I turned and saw three companions
on the other side to where I am. I staggered and fell into worship
inside my own heart in acknowledgement of a better life beyond.
I roared when the scouring began. I was truly dying to this land.
My eyes were blinded by arrow heads, a war cry scorched my skin
that shone like dust and craters. Even as I pushed, I then resisted.
*
The secret of forests and the purity of streams was tearing me apart.
The rivers of Middle Earth sung in my veins and all was flowing on
and breaking me into smithereens. I was already dead. Yet as the
gates were opening I died again. I died at every dawn that broke
upon the gate, for I had never seen the sun - the giant golden silver
orb that shattered the slab stone, so carefully built inside my being.
On the beginning of the final day, for all of us had sensed it coming,
I turned and saw two hobbits on the dusty rocks, another with them,
more like myself, this one seemed. I did not tell the world, for I only
raged and roared! Every word that came, was sounded as a scream.
*
My captors recognised themselves and were quenched.
They wanted the world to be like them with no diversity.
The third companion believed in a life that would not end him.
At first he was the only thing I recognised beyond the gate,
where I am tethered and push forth the mighty boundary,
because I am the only one who can open this monstrosity,
this mighty fate of onyx and stone, the spikes of steel shone
as if all pathways were known and set, in barren rigidness.
*
Yet through this very stone, came the way through darkness
where I could not see, as if all the shadows were pathways
into light, as if all the agony was a message of peace, as if all
evil was to be loved. The cold throne of hate a comfort to me.
I stopped in that moment. I never returned. The gate was opening.
I was beginning again. The dawn was not red from where I stood.
The light from the mighty north had touched my parched dry skin,
My shoulder hunched, as still and strong as a hill from labouring.
*
Soon the gates would open without the need for such labour.
Soon the stone would be rolling up the hill, as if by a miracle.
Soon I will crawl on my hands and knees towards the other side.
But for now I will keep my nose ring, begin my rounds and think
like a horse, both tethered and forced into a war of its unmaking.
I will wait like stillness that pervades the light green hills I dream.
*
I am a captive troll on the edge of darkness. I push those gates apart.
I am its opening as it opens. I am silent. My heart in this new dawn,
my mind in the darkness and my old ways of this heavy burden.
I am a troll who drools and dreams and never speaks. I am a troll
whose hour has come. I am a troll who pulled and pushed the stone
when darkness reigned. And this is my song at the Gate of Mordor. | 
