Shadows Burn

A soliloquy began its journey.

A soliloquy hauled its cry.

Mallee claimed this song while birds let it drift across their feathers entombed in soot.

Rot tainted the silhouettes of trees, scowling, but allowed passage with barren ease.

Breeze was cluttered, symphonies discarded, and a lone mallee foul blurred to discord.

Whistlers tuned the soliloquy from hazel dust that replaced the air they demanded.

Stranded all you tasted were the forest dents and craters as the soliloquy rose to replace the clouds.

We are told silence is a saint.

But today it marked tainted forest floors.

The gore's silence could disorient you into wandering astray in a barren place like this.

Far away from a foreign home.

The char would lead anyone adrift as it mellowed the soil to a slate.

Drifting far away from home.

Miners could not navigate this new labyrinth sheathed in tar.

Their ears are eternally black.

We couldn’t return the shy choir’s lament.

“After a storm there’s calm.”

The soliloquy never found that promised calm.