Book of Ashes: A Poem

Photo by Jorge Vasconez on Unsplash

Again, I open
this Book of Ashes, my own
chronicle of the end;
in it I’ll charcoal the sky with my pen,
smudging clouds into gray life,
while above,
rain hangs like a threat.

Our trees grow in rows;
ordering nature, we thought
to provide structure,
bend the planet to our will.
A useful chaos,
a mistake.

Creatures walk by, aliens of the worst kind:
soulless slugs in suits, faceless cruel things
with voices of mud.
Though they were human
once.
Masters of the Heap, they burn and eat
all they see — smudging our world
with their monetizing hunger.

I don’t want to watch it all in silence,
drifting here, untouched, unable to feel,
nothing more than a witness with a pen.
Living within this tomb of smoke, I’ve tried
to erase the clouds and close the Book.