Apology

  Brilliant orange dawn pushes over the roof of the world,
  Finding crystalline streams carving through purple granite.
  Cold water flowing through ancient rocky channels,
  Miles of bounding through forests in the alpine air.
  Down to the red dirt of the desert below,
  Out onto the seedless salted plain to mean nothing.
  To burn away.

  Steam rises from the poisoned sands where,
  Beasts of steel fly on wings of din and black oil.
  Crashing through the surviving tendrils as,
  Wrath streaks down to purge the surface of life.
  For one second between heartbeats,
  Everything is just still.

  From the fires rise hardened offspring fully grown,
  Craters birthing the dead.
  Stone men, dried, no flow left within.
  Water hissing and rolling at their touch.
  Gnarled trees grow with gnarled men.
  And thorns grow where orchards would spread.
  This is Natureʼs revolt against her children.

  On the beast’s back ride in rarified air, men,
  Drying out, far from home.
  Far from their flowing hearts.