A young girl sits alone on the coarse, cold sand. Pebbles lay unmoved around her still figure.
Her hair sits limply across her slumped shoulders as she gazes out into the horizon, her eyes never wavering. Her feet dip into dry water, bathing herself in dust.
Small boys used to canoe across the rippling lake, laughing at their capsized companions. Women used to sunbathe along the side on their tawdry towels while gossiping.
But now only remnants of bones decorate the waterless bottom to tell the troubling tale.
The sun is gone, only letting out faint streams of pink and orange light from under the Earth. No one knows if it will come back.
The sun no longer leaps from the arms of the sighing pine trees into the heavens up high.
It just drags itself from the ground and hauls itself into the dismal sky, coasting drearily.
And before the sun comes to rest, it no longer bids farewell to its neighbor reflecting across the waters.
It just sinks into the darkness, never catching sight of its friend in the empty lakebed.
Where trees used to be is an empty field of barren earth.
Only lonely dandelions break through the dusty dirt's grip, without a single breeze to scatter its seeds.
The child's eyes are dark and dreary with no life to sustain them. Her limbs are rigid and stiff and her body's run-down.
The warmth of spring has never touched her face, nor the snow of winter.
Life is dying. The planet is sinking into eternal misery. The skies will be forever gray and the ground will harden.
But as before, it will take time.
The world will be restored millions of years from now to a state of prosperity and life.
Except we won't be there to see it.
YOU ARE READING
A Collection of Poems: Volume II
PoetryIncludes "The Lake", "Mourning Dove", and "The Good Earth" The novel The Good Earth is written and owned by Pearl S. Buck. The poem "The Good Earth" featured here is only a poetic representation of the setting in Buck's The Good Earth. I do not clai...
