Ashen Snowfall
by Odin Roark

Once a quiet voice of wilderness

Combustion rages
Lifting waves of acrid smoke
Its cargo catching air streams
Compliant servants of change

How removed
These forests and factories ablaze
Unaware its distant partner
Nature’s frozen world
Shrouded in soot and ash
Calves to the sea

This ashen aftermath
Clinging to crystal flakes
Once but precious maintenance
For evolution’s journey
Have become icebergs collapsing

Bewildered bear and seal
Seek refuge
As ice-floats break apart
Dissolving once security
Into liquid desolation

Yet

We continue to behave
With blind trust
Or belligerent denial
Or hollow faith

Change is happening
Its rate unattended
And like a serpent
Consuming its tail
We cling to inaction
Fueling this vortex of insanity

Remaining…

Nature’s final utterance
Wearing a trim of tears
An intricate lace of them
Around a weeping voice
Echoing a receding wilderness

Has our planet become
A fracturing collapse
Of lamented nakedness
Becoming a forsaken sea of sorrow?