Calamities strike crushing blows
Crumbling edifices, society built around humanity
To make life livable, smooth over its rugged edges.

Pandemics pried away last vestige of dignity,
Mercilessly snapping lives like twigs, green or gray
And tossing it aside with reckless abandon.

Blight ravaged bodies, in multi-layered wraps
Tossed about by masked men in mortal fear.
Circle of compassion shrunk so tight to exclude the world

The powerless world watch the wanton felling far and wide,
the vise-like grip at the jugular nobody saw coming
Leaving the victim no moment to flail.

No dirge for the departed, no requiem for the sojourner.
Cowering in fear, tears frozen at its source,
beloved of the taken, hide away in daze and despair.

The dead lost their dignity, the living their humanity,
As the fear gripped the soul of men, primal lust for survival
trumped over the civility. Holding on to life over filial bonds.

Unrelenting scourge, the searing sword, sheared off
the long cherished norms and pompous vanities,
A sharp warning lingers: revile nature and repay, revere it and live.


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