In Ashen Wake

"The trees no longer care to whisper,
Their limbs blackened with the char of years,
Boughs once lifted in praise of dawn,
Now hanging small in sombre decay.

Rivers choke on remnants of intent,
Where once life danced in floods of spring,
Now floats the wretched carcass of empires,
It’s decay leeching into sacred lands.

Above the heath, smoke coil like thoughts,
From minds bereft of joyous memory,
For the skies now carry a fateful omen,
In the absence of empathy.

In the deep vales where fire now breathes,
Scorched figures lie beneath the tor,
Features cracked in raging heat,
As eyes reflect a landscape dying.

Ash falls slowly on the pastures,
And covers tracks of former kin.
Flames now hollow in their conquest,
Must all burn & start again?

This is not the wrath of gods,
Nor punishment forged in the stars.
This is nature shedding sickness,
A body exhaling its fever in flame.