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Calamity spreads his dirty wings
Like a vulture, preying on the old and weak
The helpless children, shaking and shivering
But for a mother's touch
In the dim twilight, quiet red on the horizon
We kiss him goodbye, slowly and torturously
With dry, cracked lips and burnt, peeling skin
The ache heavy in our shoulders and hearts restless for sunrise
He spreads his dusty wings cautiously, looking back
But we do not. He flies away
Slowly, heavily, weighted down by so much death and disease
He is a sickness growing weary
Dying embers of a campfire,
Mostly smoking, choking out the last bit of orange
Heat as the moon makes a final exit from the sky
He flies into a reborn sun
Reborn as we will be with the light on our faces
A dingy feather lying still on the ground, a reminder
He is a ghost now, a whisper, a silence
But ready, always ready to return
