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After the Fall
Underneath its bonnet
the engine catches, unsung syllables,
hidden notes of an era’s final hymn
They’re bringing firewood now
by horse and cart, vegetables we
sowed in sullen patches
Some survived the frost, radio
battery almost exhausted tells of
coastal cities underwater, oil stocks
Down to final barrels, drills and rigs
rusting in haunted Arabian deserts
moonlight flickering on the only substance
Left to hoard – gold! How many
civilizations have perished for thy seductive
glow, sunlight captured in trinket and coin
At night fires flicker over lost horizons
rubble of ancient enmity still burning,
wires welded inside dusty hulks of tanks
Where cats and birds once again
have made their homes inside grounded
turrets, weed choked, emptied of fuel’s spark
Underneath its bonnet
the engine catches, once a year I crank it into life
a precious minute snatched from the past
Listen to its piston-talk, breathe in acrid fumes
reminders of how it was before the fall
our children will not hear these sounds
They will bless our planet’s grim tenacity
a new beginning salvaged from the old
Tell their own children how out of it’s crawling
billions, a mere ten thousand survived
© Johnmichael Simon
2008
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