nightingales

i heard two songbirds through the window last night,

notes ringing out through the panes of glass,

breaching the vaccuum between us.

~

a wistful cacophony flowing over my body,

drenching my pores and seeping into my bones.

~

memories of primordial existence rushing back,

of a time before we stained the ground with blood

and let sooty smears sink into the landscape.

~

i heard two songbirds through the window last night,

like a call to prayer, aan's flutes,

a siren intoxicating me, drawing me

to a time where once again

songbirds sing and beeches bourgeon

and out of the ashes of a world laid bare,

desolate, decimated,

rises humanity like a great tsunami.

~

and as we crash down upon this ground we call our home,

we bring not death and destruction

but rebirth, regeneration.

~

a resistance against the throngs that came before,

bearing chainsaws and factories and plastic bags.

~

we will come bearing their mistakes and their regret.

~

we will bury them, nurture them, watch them flourish.

~

let the rains fall, wash into the soil,

saturate the earth between our toes,

rivulets snaking down our backs 

until our skin is slick to touch

but the seeds are nourished.

~

they've started germinating and they will not be halted.

~

from the rubble of a world decimated by corporate greed,

we rebuild a world centred on its own merits.

~

we may bear the burden of ancestors but we bear too their gifts.

~

i heard two songbirds through the window last night,

signing their lamentations, 

their funeral dirges.

~

and i grieved for the ruthlessness of man,

and the songbirds, of course,

but i grieved too joyously,

because i was grieving the end of an era,

and marking the dawn of a new one.