The Smoke Of Many Fires - Be'lakor

The river had brought with it much that day

From driftwood to blood from the ember

Some things were hidden

While others were seen

Yet the man somehow could not remember…

Having ambled away from the water’s banks

To return to his tribe and their lights

He soon found a failing

Of flesh, and of mind —

They were no longer robust or bright

What he could not have seen

Was the sickness upstream;

Those abandoned remains of the wasted

What he could not have seen

Was the sickness upstream;

Those abandoned remains of the wasted

What he could not have known

Was the blight of the bone

In each ebb and each flow he had tasted

Dawn found him ailing, delirium rife

Those he loved feared his illness would wander

With time wearing thin

His young eyes clouded in

As the odour of smoke became stronger

It was then that he heard the sharp crackle of torches

Carried past him by men from his clan

A panic cut through

All the life that he knew

It was over before it began

Rope looped his wrists and held tight to his veins

As beside him his relatives sagged

And with tears in their eyes

Through confusion and cries

Out towards the wild flames he was dragged

Like billions before him, regardless of form

It ended as chance had decided

So briefly contained

An inferno’s refrain

Having powered and angered and guided

At the heart of the blaze, awareness dissolved

Light ascended devoid of desire

From a trail intertwined

Life and death strewn behind

To the stars, it returned, from the fire