You can, if you listen carefully,
hear it tiptoeing toward us,
life shuffling out of its path.
There is no alternative,
if survival is the aim.
The sun dims, ever so slightly,
as it draws near.
Birdsong slips out of key;
the soil it passes over
turns rancid in its shadow.
It sweeps the horizon
an unholy radar, searching,
waiting for the blip of life
to whet its insatiable hunger.
Its name is Death
not the lichens-and-slow-crumble end
given to all things,
but a monster forged by our own hands
born in boardrooms,
nursed on greed,
grown monstrous in the blind pursuit of more.
It marches,
unmaking futures,
turning inheritance to ash.
Men made this Death
unleashed it
for control, for hunger,
and now even the world’s bones
scream beneath its shadow
