Life of a Village – Remembering the Dead


The mornings I bear are not thirsty yet; and the morning light still lets the bed of grass wake with joy. Wake up! Wake up! Ye slumbering trees slept with courage that no man will lay an axe on your arms. Run little calf for your liberty is limited and expects the fruits of thy mother’s breast. Awake! Dear fathers – you who’ve forgotten the toil of piercing the earth and have one destiny – to fertilize the eggs.

village

Look! That’s the soil I used to cherish now hidden beneath an un-living and unwilling sheet. It hates all that grows and is loved by those who destroy the living.

Yet another creation, yet another day, yet another death.

The ramifications of death have become infinite and my people call it progress.

No sayeth the rabbit who hangs to the electric fence and the eagle suffocating on a grave – poor life the eagle, mistook man’s creation to an insect and swallowed it whole.

Fumes! Yes fumes! Those burn me down and have not killed a pest to bring farmer’s doom. I hear them whisper, I hear them cry and often I hear their silent ride to rest besides their ancestors. They go tried and tired, unnoticed and un-cared. No fumes can bring them back and no fumes can create life and none can remove my pain for those passing souls.

The sheer pleasures of morning disappear with the fog and I lay burnt from the heart of the sun. He forgot me as a friend and my forced, ugly metamorphosis is killing me slowly. I am to die for certain and my life as a village will be replaced without sorrow or pity. Those that grieve will die with me – the purging streams, the waving trees and the chorus of birds. The four-legged shall not face death with me for they shall die in migration – hunted, poached and flayed.

Remember ye that trample me and fill me with alien objects – A village extinct is a world extinct.

Yet ye self-ambitious minds care not for the next day; remember, we – me and my unrecognized allies [those who lament for life itself] can see the horns on thy heads blazing red.

Man! Ye breathe fire and thy path is destruction, consumed with flames of glory.

Alas! The time approaches for the ox to rot and the lamb to starve. Yet! My child unborn, remember thy place is here. I disappear and with it humanity. My dear child, innocent of the ways of the horned men, forget not to sprinkle water, sow seeds and share the joys when animals breed. Let the birds sing new songs for you and the deer offer their bellies for you to sleep. My child, walk naked on the grass for it thrives an unblemished touch for centuries. Be the homo transcendalis, the one who transcends and brings life instead of death. Bring forth the light that cherishes everything in nature and dear child remember to bless me with eternal life and prosperity; forget me not, remember me, remember my name – I am a village.

[-Phoenix]