After

After the shatterings, the fires. After the fires, the darkness, And with the darkness, the heartless cold. After the dark and the cold Had confirmed their dominion of the world, Their ministers, Fear and Silence Made their home among the remnants. After communication was rejected And the art of diplomacy lost, After tolerance got dropped by the wayside And predjudice battened fat on the tasteless fruits of ignorance, We cast aside the desire for progress Choosing instead to believe in shadows we built of nothing Firmly set in one another's minds Until at last the day came when we said, "Let us purge the world of anyone who claims it. Let us see they inherit the dust." We assured one another of destruction, Founding security on a glass sheet of terror That shuddered beneath us And weighted our illusion of safety With load on load of suspicion. No voice rose in protest, though the danger was clear to all. We believed our leaders knew better than we, Doubt was a weakness Disbelief, heresy. So we skated on thin ice a long while, Until at last it broke, and dropped us through the Nightmare Moments When the planet itself trembled beneath us While Civilization slew itself, The work of millenia scattered like chaff. All that was left After the horror faded Was this ragged chaos Through which we, bit players left wandering the stage Drift, lost and desperate, until the curtain falls. We sit and sift ashes for memories, Splinters of things that once held meaning. Journeying the cold wilderness of our making The landscape of walking, murmuring dead Nobility of soul becomes a luxury all desire And none can afford. Last night I heard four horses approach Down the broken highway out of the ruins. Beside it I thought I saw Dante's ghost weeping And knew that now, madness is a gift. I joined the others gathered by a feeble hearth Guttering in the bones of a building. We dined together on the hollow flesh of emptiness. From cups of salt we drank our tears.