I Died, with the Earth: A Similitude of the Days of the Destroyer

I saw a shark in the desert
gliding its fins on sand dunes
The waters had gone with the wind
and crabs sat joyously in the morning sun
to watch turtles and tortoises toast to reunions.
Fish had learnt to fly without wings,
birds sat on twigs forced to change their perception of a world with no laughter.
Men, listless and confused, lay
demented on ruins they had called cities
Snakes lay motionless, coiled
on the steering wheels of dead SUVs
Women, skin cracking, dreamt of lotions and lipsticks that had once existed
They writhed in pain, their flabby breasts
Melting under the gaze of the noonday sun.

Oil wells were filled with water,
the drilling rigs shed their brown skin with every caress of the wind.
The diamond fields laughed like gaping holes on drying swamps – ferns wilting
Mines and tunnels of iron and copper,
and platinum gave refuge to black mambas
shielding their scales from the sun’s fury.
Tree stumps eyed the white sky
and wept at faraway threads of clouds
Soft fertile loam, under which moth and rodents scavenged, became clear white sand –
beautiful and acidic.
There was no grass, no foliage, no trees
to hug and climb, no roots to harvest.

I watched on, frail like crowned sorghum
swaying to the thrust of enraged winds,
at clusters of human hair scattered on my shadow
I bled from the prick of thorns under my feet
twitched from blisters and wounds
that decorated my wiry frame
and endured the torment of
sandstorms
as hungry insects feasted on my naked skin,
Lonely – alone with a dying earth
I remembered the past; a world that was,
and cried hugged by approaching darkness.

Destiny comes to those who listen,
and upon a bed of ignorance, fate finds the rest,
yet not even the wise knew the
appointed hour:
that the circling ball of flames shall hide
behind the billowing clouds of smoke,
that the land shall swallow all waters
and twist in anguish at cinders from the heavens.
Blood drops from the sky mopped my flesh
boiled my skin, as the heavens burnt brightly
casting red copper hues across the earth.
The skies fell on my fleet, a fearsome sight!
as my enduring vigil ended.
I died – with the earth.

Richard Oduor

2012