I want to feel the air
as it was many years ago.
So clean, so pure.
Because, to wake in the spring
to the ground so lucid and cool,
and have the wind whisper its stories
of lands far of - gaily laughing
as it speaks of its own witness' of
powerful oceans, lazy rivers, and majestic mountains,
made my trunk seep with joy -
to heal the winter's bites of loneliness.

Indeed, as a young one
I never had a want to leave their valley,
for I had everything I needed.
the elders sheltered my feeble limbs
from the thick rain,
which came from
the dark blankets from above.
They also stopped the white fire
that sometimes fall from the dark blanket.
And when it became dry,
they gave me water when it was needed.

Yes, I remember those times,
beautiful as they were.
But, I also remember
how painful it was to see my elders fall.
Thud.  Scream.  Thud.  Scream. Thud.  Scream.
And fall.
They took them away and
I saw them no more.
For some reason, they left me alone,
and there was only a few of us left,
scattered about this place.

We were all young it seemed.
And were left to the drowning rain,
which passed without giving much drink.

One by one, the white fire tore
some of us down,
repeating the screams we once heard.
And blistering winter hands
broke our remaining pride and made even
more of us fall to the ground.

Screams.

Eventually, only I remained.
I alone remain to listen to the stories
that the wind brings each new spring,
nightmares of infested rivers, the poisoned oceans,
and the arid mountains.
I can barely breath;
I am choking on this black air.

And as the years passed
The winters became warmer,
and I had to reach for the life
given from the earth.
But even that was tainted
with a black taste of death,
relentlessly imbuing its poison
into my once proud body.
So, it stands to reason
to say that I was losing my life
to a death that is not of nature.

But, I am dead now,
Having told the earth my story,
before I passed away,
I charged my tender mother
to repeat my words until
someone actually listened,
with their eyes and with their ears,
to the beat of mother’s heart
and our seem-less undying fears.
Boom-BOOM.   Boom-BOOM.
Boom   -    BOOM    boom   -   boom
Boom.

Can you hear it?

©2008 Joseph L.M. Sturm