Ripples
Water, leaves, time, lives.
The choices of medium that nature selects to exert its unstoppable, omnipresent forces upon.
A gentle breeze or a drop of rain.
Two of many tools used to create that ever expanding flow by the hand of Mother Earth herself.
Should I toss a stone into the calm sheen of a pond, have I become one of nature’s tools?
Are we not part of the Earth’s beauty?
Images of God himself, placed upon the world in order to refine his masterpiece?
After all, we can cause ripples too.
A sentence misspoke, a line misheard.
The gentle toss of the perfect stone; cast upon the waters of that fading childhood memory, left to be
lost among the other “oh so perfect” throws, leaving nothing but those everlasting
Ebbs and flows.
Developed
Two robins exist now,
Where before only stood one.
Scavenging through the fruitless urban garden, long before the blossoms begin to bloom.
Clouds are covering a once sapphire sky, as the Anthropocene expands noisily in the distance.
Gaia has left us, yielding to charcoal toned structures.
This city, a perfect synthesis of stone and steel, could have been built by Ozymandias himself.
A manmade wasteland has taken the place of a vast and beautiful forest.
The nature that remains has been created,
Not preserved.
Recreation and illustration are its only purpose.
The residual wildlife does not know this is no longer a habitat meant to sustain us.
The scraps left to be scavenged are gifts given unknowingly.
The toss of a crumb has been done more for amusement than pity,
But it is food nevertheless.
A new way of life has evolved from this geometric jungle of concrete.
The world is infertile, and bears no fruit for those who are starving.
I find myself lonely in this world
Where one can never be alone.
Noise and people operate around me, stuck in the routine of a scheduled life.
The robins escape into a hazy sky,
Fleeing from the sound of a siren; a noise that is just close enough to be distant.
I have been left, once again, to search for an imperceivable goal.
I find solace in the nearby distance,
A friend with a similarly unachievable feat ahead.
For a brief glimpse I see that comforting, yet sad, sight.
That image which befalls my eyes,
A lonesome squirrel, searching for food,
On a squeaking steel staircase.
East Fork:
A Journal of the Arts
Crosley
A pinnacle of human prowess stands before me.
A collision of art and stone held together through the strength of steel in the form of beams and rebar.
The tower crumbling beneath the weight of itself looks longing towards all horizons,
Seeking a sign of its incoming doom.
Power is what it stands for, a remnant of the urbane era that plagued a nation.
The once broadcasted signal of might and sophistication is to be left, forgotten, and removed from an
already scarred skyline.
A warning is signaled in the plight of this dying beast.
A message meant for those whose vain seeks to outlive nature.
Beware to thee who seeks to rise above the human realm, to touch the sky with no offering of beauty or
life. For your triumph shall be overcome when the world pulls your structures of steel and stone down”
A tower is falling before me, and I have no pity left to give.
Remnants
I’ve been here before.
A forgotten memory in an unfamiliar place flows in just as quickly as it fades out.
The area my body currently occupies is not the source of my fleeting recollection.
But the space which my mind inhabits is pulling a feeling I had locked within the catacombs of my soul.
An already hollow space has been cleared of the last remaining evidence of contentment.
The emptiness that once filled the unoccupied is now joined by her ever-jealous mistress.
A name that once beckoned to me, calling me towards an abysmal plane.
A dame called loneliness has invited herself into my home and has poured us a drink.
Not a drink to cheer with,
There will be no celebration at this party of two.
The spirits being risen are only found in a glass that raises no higher than my upturned chin.
It is a drink called sorrow.
A drink that slithers down my throat,
Washed down by the tears I fight when your name fills my mind,
But leaves my soul empty
Aaron Fletcher