Dying Planet

the solemn grey skies
of the first afternoon snows
up here in the mountains
by the lake

no buses roar
no blasting boom-box
no crack vials on my lawn

but no magic purple room
alive with music
no friends with whom to make it
no favorite haunts to visit

no chance
to wallow
in sad losses
and visual reminders

but they're just as vivid
in my mind
and neither time
nor distance
can weaken my loss

bears in the wild
and babes in the woods
the rain of pain
strikes unsheltered souls

who's only crime
was to be too human
too innocently
ignorant of death

but death will find us
teach us
master us
it reigns eternal

snows will fall
and forests will burn
and mighty steel towers
rust to mounds of dust

the sun will darken
the oceans disappear
the earth will vaporize

but death will still lurk
elsewhere
other worlds to tame
other life-forms
to snuff out

on some world,
somewhere,
it just started
snowing for 
the very first time
on some 
other world
many billions 
of years of life
are suddenly
extinguished
when the last 
living creature
is touched
by death

death 
that awaits me
death
that awaits you

it's a violent universe
where it is only
change that doesn't change

and death is 
always the master
its fingers are long
and aged

and it smiles
in certain
anticipation
of its eventual-
its assured,
final
victory
Copyright © | Year Posted 2007

Poem

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