Particular Words in a Specific Order

pooling at the center of the valley is a dry mourning
the Sun crests the lip of the crucible
and impresses upon the grasses an unbearable will
where lone blades shrivel in heat, 
the field takes up the wind and breathes coolly
they lean in and surge, 
and the hoppers cut them down
it is as He said it would be
one death of a simple thing is worth a song
so the hoppers mourn for each lost meal
poor empty yellows
and their voice becomes all the sound in the world
cept the wind (i had been told that, too, is His)

the field that begs for clouds
watches us, i thought
it grows quiet as we entered it, the choir
unsure if they are meant to mourn us, too
for what we had given and lost while trampling them
was almost all for our own sake
this bright world we demanded of them
with our cement and pipes and ichor
rivaled His will
in strength, if not in purpose
but in only two hundred years
He has cracked our concrete and sent us flying
making us more memory than much else
but we visited this place
payed our respects
to our lost people, their lost people, His lost people
but never this place alone

i will have borne my own mourning, the normal selfish kind,
for the burnt hope that when He finally wills us out of this world with the caustic sky we offered to him
the hoppers and their grass will forget what we had done and remember only that we sang, too
and they will sing the same song in the quiet we left them with

2025