January 26, 2017

The last man on Earth rowed his boat into the darkened lake
Alone with the bitter acrid wind tearing at his face
An overcast sky screaming by
Every blink showed the mushroom anvil
Of poison and death.

He stopped rowing and remembered the now dead
His president had taken the gamble into war
And it turned nuclear and deadly.
Around him, this man watched as the wind howled
The surface of the steel grey water rippled.

The man closes his eyes and thinks of better times.
A flash of light
A vision of what could have been
Around him life was dying
Governments were long gone
The machines of war now dead and decaying
The bones of fallen men tainted the lands.

And the wind screamed, and he felt the jarring cold
This was a landscape without trees
The trees were dying
The world was moving on....
The man stands up in the canoe
Jumping into the freezing water.

That moment when the last breath leaves the last human
What becomes of that memory?