Premonition

To the northeast and beyond

On the very edges of the glistening shores 

A shattered forest of stump and splinter 

Cracked and smoldering, as if for all time 

Yet that disastrous event which stripped the land 

Has yet to ever occur 

There is no record of wildfire 

No meteor shower from the summer night sky 

No overturned lantern or lightning strike 

Nothing has ever happened here

For as long as things have been recorded 

And our generations have run

But still the forest smokes

The ground tucked in below a blanket of ash

The few remaining trees are sickly and charred

Yet never do they fall or die 

And never do new trees sprout 

Despite the fertile ground rich in minerals 

No it was not long ago

That the forest burned and the earth was scarred 

Nor was it recently so 

We know truly that it was ages from now 

In an unspeakable sector of posterity 

A forgotten year that is yet to be 

In the far distant future this forest burns 

And the land is laid bare before us 

The event echoes back to us 

A warning a premonition 

Of dread and fearful things to come 

But alas it is only a premonition