Where there was...

This morning I awoke

I wandered through my home

But I cannot comprehend

this landscape I roam

Where there was rock

now there is sand

and a darkly falling ash

covers this land

The streams have all dried                                                     

those ran clear many years

now only a sickly trickle

and muddied by tears

Where there were evergreens

standing tall and strong

now they are skeletons

and their trunks bent wrong

I can his feet marching

through what I thought was dirty snow

but it is him feeding fires

and fanning hot winds that blow

The skies are gray and firery

no sunshine through this soot

and trees; what remained standing

fall now without root

My fields are dead

covered in salt

lay down in the ash

this must be my fault

I looked for my tower

tall, stone and round

now there is just dust

and no hallowed ground

--william paris