Terra

Samuel Marcotte

I mourn for the ignorance of a childish kind,

The untattered soul, the unburdened mind.

You asked me what I thought of God;

I responded, “I don’t, I walk alone,

I share no one’s faith but my own;

and as it is now they spared the rod.”

The flames rise in the forest flush

A willow woman reveals herself from the brush,

Her vines wrap around my neck and hair,

and she whispers to me, “It’s rude to stare;

If the earth is yours to inherit, then mine is vine.

This grass beneath is your monument divine.

The trees are your legacy, the leaves your friend.

You, the worms, and the germs will blend.

Time was a breeze in a present pure hue,

The past betrays you as the future destroys you.

The woman’s hands flared into flaky hoods;

one pointed towards the smoky woods,

Her other at the pursuing, inferno light.

One path to sun, and the other to night.

She embraced me in her loving lash...

Then ash, and the next flame flash.