Member-only story
An Ancient Visitor
It began with plunging, crashing floods
Released from thick, brute sheets of ice.
Their tearing teeth gnashing through the
Mountains of granite, quartz and gneiss.
The Earth was not who She is today
As the lone Visitor of this interval, I would know.
Her face bled water and showered fear
Drowning her children in blackened snow.
My ship had come, my time drew nigh
The weight of life lessened as we rose and
All consuming light pulling up, stretching out.
Time, its solitary force, had froze.
Turning ‘round in this last, brief moment
I gazed upon their Earth, though not the Earth I knew.
There peered a thousand tiny lights,
Glimmering against the oceans’ blackened hue.
A thousand flickering islands of light,
Their fires burning among the engulfing seas and
The ever consuming blackness of time,
Indiscriminate in its controlled disease.
My friends would perish if they had not already,
No longer on the wind would their laughter traverse.
I questioned our right to leave them now in this
Brief moment against their universe.
Still, we left them all behind to fate.
Bearing witness to our singular objective,
Stood now complete within the wheel of time
Though our future return remained elective.
