Bucha, March 2022

 

24 February 2022

Father, Father tell me why
these fires of crimson cross the sky,
revealing horsemen all aglow
with weapons at the saddlebow.

The flames are pyres of Pestilence,
the worm that rides by night and day,
that hurdles thorny hedge and fence,
to fall on unsuspecting prey.

Look! Stamping on the burning earth,
you see the rough-shod steed of War,
whose rider was a god at birth
now changed to something all abhor.

There, equally to be reviled,
rides one to wither grain and grass
called Famine, War’s unsightly child,
with eyes as pitiless as glass.

With fury’s fever gone at last
comes Death to rake the smoking embers;
to tamp them down into the past
until nobody quite remembers.