(c) Patricia Isabel Lucido
VALS, 2021
This is the way the world ends
I
This is the howling
This is the rumbling
The Earth struggling to breathe
Her lips of rock and stone
Are dry and chapped
Cracked crooked on the surface
Deep within, her blood flows big bang-hot
And burns bright like the sun, the holy star
The Earth’s wounds do not heal
So do not remember Her
As the infinite and everlasting
She is not eternal
II
Do not turn to the oceans and seas
Do not search the tides and the shores
For the crystalline, shimmering sea glass
Born from broken shards thrust deep
And forced into the mother blue
As she yells out, cries, and pleads
These unwanted children will find no home
In my body or my sand
Still, they shine in the sun
Counterfeit diamonds for a seafarer’s wife
Emeralds and rubies and sapphires
Neither natural nor artificial
Such glittering rocks only hold value
In a blind man’s hand
Beauty lies to the eyes of its beholder
Beauty lies to the eyes of its beholder
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III
In the desert, there is life
Springing forth at the thought of rain
Coming alive only to beg and plead
The desert cries out, yells towards the sky
Has man not sinned enough?
Has man not sinned enough?
It waits for the gods to come undone
And burst open a spring well
Like the first seed of life on earth
Oh–a man inside a woman
Oh–the birth, the creation
Oh–its hymnal chant continues
Oh, oh, oh–
IV
Do not search the mountains
Nor dare go to the fields
In search of a house, a home
Do not take root in these forests
You are skin, blood, bone
You are meat, you are food
The mountain roars, the valley moans
Listen–
The trees yearn to have teeth
It is whispered into the wind
And carried by the monsoons
That bring forth each storm and typhoon
The rain agrees as he tries
To give life to these ancient beasts
Remembering that doctor gone mad
From trying to play God
But the Earth opens the mountains instead
Whose mouths gape open to swallow
Man, woman, child–
Do you hunger, my children?
The ancient titan mother asks
As she feeds her young through their roots
Slithery, spiny tongues of bark and stone
Seeking flesh, seeking bone
Taking root in these corpses and their homes
The trees yearn to have teeth
V
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread
Until you return to the ground
This is the howling
This is the rumbling
This is the five-fingered shout
Accusing
For from it you were taken
Between the bedrock and the stone
Between the mountain and the valley
The gasping of the Earth
The breathing, beating heart of life
There is the promise
For you are dust
Between the sand and the sky
Between the rivers and the seas
The panting of the Earth
The choking, breaking heart of life
There is the prophecy
And to dust you shall return
From the distant well
The rotting core
The titan mother
Ours–
This is the howling
This is the rumbling
This is the Earth