by Aiden Zhou
I ambled along the sea-bank,
Lone at the edge of time;
Amidst a world eroded, sank
In swells of salt and brine.
Preserved is the fluttering wind
Dancing through the dead land;
As moss-tombed corpses lie behind
Across the boundless sand.
Whose dreadful hand could raze and fell
Thy posts of rooted steel?
And tear from ivory citadels
Forests of copper teal.
I stand immortal but forlorn,
A husk of rotting skin;
As feasting vultures smirk in scorn
At our eternal sin.
Yet the sky glints a painful blue,
The sun blind brightly looms;
Flaxen grass kissed green by dew
Embrace the blossoms’ bloom.
And from the heavens I did see
Man’s final fire iced;
A burnéd world, from us set free
To bathe in candlelight.