DESOLATION: A SONG'S END

The messenger's burden warbles a labyrinthine chorus

against the breeze that lifts the hairs of nature's bonnet,

drowning all words, murmurs and clamors, in a green rustle.

The ballad crescendoes, the keen, biting whisper

growing mountainous against the eerie, azure storm.

Then, the melancholic, joyous anthem suddenly ceases.

A silence, more racketous than a shattering sun,

screeches its way into the hearts of magpies

who move their wings over their ears, pressing hard,

blinking as tears descend their snowy, charcoal cheeks,

masking them in an imaginary, gleaming fog.

They choke, they gasp, they shudder, they weep,

yet it is all for naught. The tune is done, gone:

the shimmering sunlight stunned the story into oblivion,

and now, no adventure will ever dare to return.

Forever, only quiet will remain amidst the cascading cinders

where infinity once danced before it was extinguished

in the dishonest zephyrs.

There is not an echo, nor a reflection, nor an odor to sense.

The light left a void so desolate it strangled the courier's heart.