Authored: January 31, 2022

Somewhere on the periphery
We smelt the acrid smoke of wild fires out of control
We were buffeted by burning winds, hot on our skin
Rivers run dry, no clouds in the sky
Dams drying up, no rain forecast
From Space, Earth was bereft of cloud cover.

Sea rises on continent edges, cities inundated
There was no Ice left, Poles dry as a bone
Ancient, freed spores now in the winds
Entering devastated animal kind
Mutations abound.

Around the Earth, disastrous famines bore down
Arid lands increasing as deserts grew
Conflicts raged over resources
What once were meadows and fields, were now battle zones
People attended holy sites
Each prayer met by silence.

Governments collapsed; civilization broke down
The streets ran with blood and refuse
One mutation away
Only one....

A spore breathed in by a human
A new host
The last pandemic
Immuno-compromised, mutation
Passed on, receptors valid.

Do you hear the Valkyrie call?
The elegy begins
One mutation away
Only one....