extinction

with the extinction of dreams
and the dissolution of creative hope
a river becomes an empty canyon
a wood becomes a wilderness
future cities rust
with these hands
these burning hands
and an aching back burnished by the travail of hardship
i can confide that as these sore rimmed eyes
and their addled association
looked into the growling augury of storm
and as they wailed those arms in fear
they saw the selfish man laid bare to bones
in the brief spark of its lightening
the incontinence of grief
echoed in its canyoned roaring thunder
the reversion of the many gifts and joys
that separate the cherished from the lonely
in its tree splitting violence
they saw only slow coveted death
in its epicentric eerie darkness

imagine wheels within wheels
spinning endless pinions
that move a ratchet that accumulates a clock
that a while throws a lever that release a latch
that opens doors that open doors that open rooms
that have windows into other worlds

cantilevered as life is
by chance

we move upon the throes of extinction
vaguely from time to time
in consequence of our being
indifferent for the most part to
the eclectic die of destiny
whose serendipity watches
with one eye suspended in the very thunder
another beaming from behind the cumulus
sliding on the rainbows arc