Splintered Song

A past,

Of glass,

Shattered,

Fractured.

A shard,

A façade,

A g’day and a grin,

But the present cannot mask the massacre within.

Drift into dreams of a buried era,

When sapphire oceans were sparkling clear,

Stars were seen,

The country was clean.

Deep in that memory,

A beckoning melody,

Cicadas singing on ghost gum trees,

Galahs gliding on a summer breeze,

A hissing, hushing, racing, rushing,

Of rivers and streams gracefully gushing,

The sky a canvas, spattered with clouds,

Possum hollows and shaded shrouds,

Vermillion rocks,

Slumbering crocs,

Starfish scattered across the sand,

Canyons and chasms entrenched in the land,

Pearly beaches and tumbling waves,

Jewels and gems and opaline caves,

Wrapped in the arms of the sun’s warm caress,

And blades of grass stooping with dew-drop duress,

Burn it down,

Build a town,

Strangle it with smog and smoke,

Let it die, let it choke,

Sacred ground where you trespass,

And build your city of shattered glass.