How will the bare trees sing, now the birds lie smouldering?

Who will call up the morning sun from that great grey cloud?

How will the blackened grass sprout green again?

While the fish lie heaped and gasping on the shore?

While the sea heaves as always?

The sea swells as ever, fills with the blown dust, churns itself to paste.

The mountains cascade their grit into its depths.

All the earth is under water, all the air on fire.

The water is thick with earth, charred by fire.

The air is murky and dense, not a lung left to breathe it.

And whose plaintive howl will summon the moon tonight?

Through a sky opaque with smuts?

When there is no one there to see it?

And who will hear the last echo of a voice hoarse with choking?

When their ears are blocked with the glutinous trickle of silence?

Whose blood will still beat under the pressure of a sky heavy with our making?

Who will still be there, to witness the insects stir?

While the labouring sea heaves as always?

Who will be there to chronicle this?

And who will remain to learn?

And how will the bare trees sing again?

Once there are no more birds to burn?