In an era of meaningless words,
In a day of numberless hours,
With legends of musical birds,
And states of limited powers,
With tales of sight unrestricted,
Of trees with breath that was fed
From breath of man inflicted,
Of lands where rivers weren't dead.
By streams too turgid for flowing,
In air too noxious for breath,
Bitter weeds of sorrow are growing,
And the view of tomorrow is death.
The fin and the shell have vanished
From the brine, and wings in the sky
From the sphere of the air are banished
'Till vast eons rectify
The crime of pillage and plunder
Of the planet, third from the Sun,
Which had its glory and wonder
By the hands of its issue undone.
The creature epoch has ended:
Tomorrow unfolding in dream,
For unknown ages extended,
Unrolls her circular scheme.
A monstrous realm of the blind:
Dim, flickering lamps of the night
Run radioactive assigned
Phantoms of darkness and light
On clouds adrift o'er the wasteland.
Dank fogs and steams out of hell,
In fractals and programs unplanned,
Play brainless skits for a spell.
Years fly by as a minute;
The soul knows nothing of time;
Earth's face and everything on it
dissolves in nitrogenous slime.
Thunderbolts hit in the quagmire.
Amino acids are born:
Creation divorced from desire,
A mating no shaman can scorn.
One day, the Sun shinning brightly,
On seas and streams spraying clear,
On nothing man-made or unsightly,
In realms of fresh living air,
A tenuous tendril moves upward;
It drinks and leans to the Sun,
It spawns and pollen are scattered:
The cycle once more has begun. End