Famished languished fingers reach skyward
As parched sea-salt-dried mouths open
Barely even a whimper escapes into the distance
Bemoaning in unison like gulls calling.

We wished for a future,
Devoid of reality
Avoidant of the derelict
Consumed with digital consumption —
While soiling the very veins of tree roots.

We make gods out of flawed humans
Who sings siren songs or plays the part in plays
Collecting praise and earthy riches,
Gold coin amnesia to sell their bodies for a hit of applause.

Meanwhile, our churches are empty,
The pews collect dust,
No one remembers his name
No one praises in fear or love
It’s pedestrian, mundane, a common act
Meaningless like Valentine’s Day
We took the magic and turned it into paper collage art.

It happened with a crack of the world,
A thunderous voice anguished across black clouds
And strikes of lightning showing enraged veins
And birds, like angels, fell from the heavens,
Crashing upon the rain-stained and wetted soil.

We should have heeded the warning.

As the fires are burning,
Scorching skin to cement
Melding bone to iron rod,
California is lost, gone to the water
Drunk from the ocean,
Sand storms from the Valley of Death
Filling their orifices
Swath away the faithless in a single blow.
And behold the rising of the deep below.

Ashes befoul the air like a rainstorm
Choking oxygen from the lungs,
We bathed in the currents of poisoned waters
And bore children in chimeric horrors,
Cosmic old ones stir under their beds uncomforted
As the earth stirs, and breaks her silence.

Death would be a simple act of grace and mercy
If only to watch along purgatorial veils of fog
As we sing like beached sirens.

A hymn to the skyward palisades
Where no one is there to listen.