I know a place
Far from this time
That has gray skies
Yet never rains
I know a place
That has just one city
Glass windows broken
Vines and plants smothering
The gray cement
I know a place
Where there are only
Fallen skyscrapers
Cracked streets
I know a place
Where people are scared
And huddle in the city
To threatened to move
Imagine it
Mankinds whole population
In one city
They are Violent
Because war reins
I know a place
Where gun ships replace
Rain
Where bombs replace
Trees
Where starvation replaces
Animals i once knew by name
That are no longer
Where food is to be fought for
And sides to be chosen
Yes I know this place
I visited it in a dream
I was on the opposing side
In this silly game
A member of their convenient war council
Yet I do not know what we were called, what we fought for
I was here in this mourning city
By accident
And I saw a boy that I knew
Flying one of those gunships
Our eyes locked, and
Next thing I knew
I was holding his face in my hands
Crying, for war was indestructible
Whispering to him, "I know you"
And he looked at me with frightened eyes
And said, "I wish I did"
Yes, I know a place
Of despair
Of toil
Of misguided hatred for our brothers
Our sisters
Of loss
Of agony
Of people so crude, so violent and twisted by fear and loss
Huddled in the Mourning City
Where even hope isn't among their prized possessions
Did you know
That some don't know what the sun is?
Yes I stay away from that place
The Mourning City
I wonder which is really the evil side
And travel down a hill
Covered in grass
Shining, lustrous, long blades of it
Braided together in clumps
Sand showing between them
I sit on this hill
And look out at an ocean
Reflecting the gray of the sky
But somehow transforming the gray
Into the finest silver
It is an ocean, yes
But it has no waves to ruffle it
Even the wind has fled
It is the only beautiful place left
Where grass cranes float in the sky
It used to be called origami
Borne by a wind made just for them
I do not make these grass cranes
Nobody does
But the grass sitting in clumps on the hillside
Bends and twists and folds
Giving up it's life in the ground
To go sailing in the gray sky
By some miracle offering up true beauty
If only people would come and see it
This is the place where I am truly happy
Joyful to the point of tears
As a crane floats down to me
I catch it and hold it gently, this miracle the grass has folded itself into
It reminds me of the paper cranes I played with as a child
With a smooth, long, straigt body
With a long tail sloping up in the back
Pointed upwards to the sky, it's final destination
The neck is long and slender
The head perched atop of the neck furrowed down
In the greatest majesty
The wings
Smooth and unbroken
Wide pieces of blades melded together
About the length of my hand
The end adjoining the body the widest part
And blooms and tapers slowly to a point
Like the petals in a flower
It is beautiful and graceful, this grass crane
I throw it back up in the air
Watch it soar with it's comrades
As I lay on my back
Go to sleep
And awake in my house
Clinging to the memory of
a place where I was happy
The place of the Grass Cranes