The Wilting Rose

Once upon a time

There was a place called Africa

Where God breathed air into clay

And made a man and woman

The man and woman bore

Many children, they grew big

And the continent was filled

With many tribes

Who scattered across the land

Who spoke so many languages

And had different customs

Life was simple back then

For they were living

In the Garden of Eden

They were vibrant and peaceful people

Ruled by Queens and Kings

They were like the Amazon forest

One day, the wind blow from the west

Everything changed overnight

The wind brought strangers to the shore

The people opened the gates of heaven

And invited the strangers in kindly

The strangers saw the fruits in the gardens

But they didn’t like any of it

So they began chopping them down

With sharp axes

Sometimes pulling them down

From the hanging trees

The strangers then carried the remaining fruits to their new land

Since their arrival

The new land was cold and barren

for the fruits of Eden

The delicious fruits blamed the ships

That carried them across

the vast open oceans

Suddenly, the bell rang

It’s 2020 now

The globe woke up

For 8 minutes and 46 seconds

They couldn’t believe it

They couldn’t breathe

They squeezed their eyes

Hoping for the image to disappear

But the image was vivid, black as the night

So, they marched

Fist and hearts in the air

Running into the suffocating

smokes, battered by wooden sticks

And sprinkled with water

As they begged, “we can’t breathe!”

So, they cried and shouted more

Until their noises no more echoed silent

But woke up sleeping souls

they chanted, protested, sang

Soon, the heat came down

The sun set in the horizon

The nightfall took over

Then, just a few trees left

standing in gray shadows

The fruits in the Garden of Eden

Are withering and wilting

Although the rainfall is pouring down

Cascading like thunderstorms

In a new feee-land

Where even the sun

is shining at night

YS 6-14-20