AFTER THE RAZING

The unlucky and unfit were washed away.
Those creatures which breathe through their skins can now at last
venture out from under logs and rocks.
The salamanders are liberated.
The grass parts before their awkward gaits,
and water shakes off from the blades
lubricating their passage.
For now the way is safe for the thin-skinned.

There's food aplenty:
the soil erupts with worms
mushrooms thrust their umbrellas up.
What is dead, now seeps back into living forms.

Clumsy fledglings who plunged to the ground
lie helpless among fallen twigs,
while their parents swoop to retrieve the twigs
and repair their windblown nests.
The parents sing, almost laze about,
there being fewer gaping mouths to feed.

Thunder softens to a hum
softer than the shaking leaves.
The forest floor is tied together
by spider webs heavy with drops,
with each drop a prism, a carpet of rainbows.
While on a grander scale
Noah's arc bends through the parting clouds
like Nut, the Egyptian sky goddess.
And higher still,
aloof on his throne,
God,
like Nero,
ordains
yet another grand rebuilding.

- Richard Fein