Angry, Brittle, Dry
The sun rises and sets time and time again, but the river has run dry. Men have stolen the water in the north, and those across imaginary borders starve. The landscape, once lush, now a desert, cannot sustain life.
My bed becomes angry, brittle, and dry. Time passes, until my existence is forgotten. The lands my waters once replenished are now an endless desert. Lifeless landscapes with red peaks that stretch to the sky shouting in anger. Fences and walls cross my bed forward and back again. Desperate creatures dig, climb, crying for asylum from what lie behind them. Then they die, their cries unanswered. Or they are captured by those who want the water only for their own. The land to the north becomes a prison. The land to the south becomes a wasteland. Then there is my essence that flows between, but I have grown angry, brittle, and dry.
I am angry at the injustice as those who leave the water forsake their memories of empathy. Their cannibalistic nature vows vengeance over forgiveness, and water droplets turn to blood of the fallen. I am brittle, for my earth has been neglected by the caretakers, displaced by the colonizers from the north and the east. I am brittle for the caretakers have all died, the waters rich in memories of life having been denied. My soil flakes under the heat of the sun, so that none can quench their thirst. I am dry because my source of life was stolen by humans who thought the natural course of a river should flow to suit their needs, rather than to the needs of the land. What once flowed into lands of pyramids and the great ocean to the west, is now but dust.
Will the rains bring peace? Will it replenish? Or will they flood the lands? I cannot decipher the lands from the skirts of my beds. My rich soils, now dust, cannot sustain the waters that fall from the sky. Across the hills and valleys, human pests cry for help for my angry, brittle dry existence cannot save them. The memories from the waters that fall are tarnished with grief, confusion, and vengeance. Grief for the destruction of the great river that died over a century past. Confusion that life cannot return to that angry, brittle, dry bed. And vengeance, because unlike humanity, the earth never forgets.
My bed becomes angry, brittle, and dry. Time passes, until my existence is forgotten. The lands my waters once replenished are now an endless desert. Lifeless landscapes with red peaks that stretch to the sky shouting in anger. Fences and walls cross my bed forward and back again. Desperate creatures dig, climb, crying for asylum from what lie behind them. Then they die, their cries unanswered. Or they are captured by those who want the water only for their own. The land to the north becomes a prison. The land to the south becomes a wasteland. Then there is my essence that flows between, but I have grown angry, brittle, and dry.
I am angry at the injustice as those who leave the water forsake their memories of empathy. Their cannibalistic nature vows vengeance over forgiveness, and water droplets turn to blood of the fallen. I am brittle, for my earth has been neglected by the caretakers, displaced by the colonizers from the north and the east. I am brittle for the caretakers have all died, the waters rich in memories of life having been denied. My soil flakes under the heat of the sun, so that none can quench their thirst. I am dry because my source of life was stolen by humans who thought the natural course of a river should flow to suit their needs, rather than to the needs of the land. What once flowed into lands of pyramids and the great ocean to the west, is now but dust.
Will the rains bring peace? Will it replenish? Or will they flood the lands? I cannot decipher the lands from the skirts of my beds. My rich soils, now dust, cannot sustain the waters that fall from the sky. Across the hills and valleys, human pests cry for help for my angry, brittle dry existence cannot save them. The memories from the waters that fall are tarnished with grief, confusion, and vengeance. Grief for the destruction of the great river that died over a century past. Confusion that life cannot return to that angry, brittle, dry bed. And vengeance, because unlike humanity, the earth never forgets.