The morning woke me with a sweet song, my eyes sputtering in the bright
light that filtered down through bowing branches of my friends
surrounding me.
What more pleasantries could the mind seek then the fresh scent of the
forest, and the conundrum of symphonic sounds that filtered to my ears?

Eyes flitting to the boughs overhead I could see more friends still,
beads of their thoughts floating like a leaf down to me, sweet titters
of song resonating round me.
Feeling the wind glance round my skin, the reeds in the river beside me
caught its song too, rustling about each other in a gay dance.
Neer could such peace be found anywhere but in the heart of Nature,
enfolded in Her tender embrace.

But as all beauty is in vain, thus Her own tresses and curves come to
face the end that is brought down by the hand of mortals.

A shift of the breeze brought the shiver, and silenced the laughter of
my family, stiff choking wafts of anger filling my mind.
I could feel their screams, traveling through their earthbound tendrils,
seeping into me - poison in my veins.

Horror, agonizing, wrenching cries consuming my mind and drowning my
soul.
The winds slow, choking on the stagnant air as the sky is blotted,
hidden and frighten from the burning revulsion as it begins its
consumption.
The piteous screams escalate, my friends flitting from the trees,
frantic in their escape, blind in the smoke as it swirls like demons
about the branches of my trees.

Choked breaths as I stumble to them, hysterically...vainly trying to
douse the flames with the river, hearing its crackle like mocking
laughter.
Screaming pain my trees I feel you, see your flesh singeing as though it
were my own as my numbed limbs stumble me into the stream.

Why cant they hear your cries, why dont the flames care that they are
killing you?
Why do I feel myself burnt to cinders at your plight, rendered useless
in the water by the consuming anguish?

Moving again I splash the waves, allies in the wetness, the flickering
licks of fire only laughing their steam back in my face.
The sun is gone beneath your vile brethren, the smoke above you,
scorning me in my helpless state, as with each breath I feel my strength
slipping...burning away as such beloved trees.

Why do I awaken to such deathly silence?
Where are the dancing branches, my furry scurrying friends, and the
trilling loves of flight?
Why was I left behind here, soaked and empty, hearing the broken stumps
of what I so loved collapse upon themselves in a final sigh?

Tendrils of ash heave into the air, sky still smote by festering plooms,
signal of the satiated burning demons.
Empty husks of cauterized desire, the black bodies of my home being all
that is left of their spent lust.

I am nothing but a burnt stem, my whole being of ash suspended in
trepidation, in fear of the passing breeze that will destroy me like my
family... a black pock mark on the barren soil.


Penned by my hand on the 18th of Lleian, in the year 123 MA.