you*  
expect
ashes sifting silently through a dead sky  
the sun only a memory, or white smudge
on a gray palette, no longer
the yellow yolk promise of clear day  
the golden harvest a morose, mocking recollection  
the reaping, now a remnant of fierce fire  
you
would like to think
we
started a conflagration whose source
could be traced to abstractions…
avarice, hate, ignorance, misunderstanding*  
and could, therefore, be reversed
with equally airy notions…
peace, compassion  
but the clock cannot be rewound  
the cinders cannot be whisked away
from the fouled fallow fields  
the baby carcasses
cannot be made pink and whole again  
the waters pure, and capable of great baptism  
for it was not a sacred sin
that scorched our flesh, closed our throats
and made black the world of grieving color
but a mindless rock that landed
in a calm ocean, and reminded
you  
we  
never had control  
but faded away like dinosaurs
in our final days