Death of Gaia

Dipped in the ink

of dreams half-forgotten,

Scribbled across a midnight sky

Angels dancing on the backs of dragons

as pitch black rain fills my eyes...

Giant swaths of my skin are ripped from my bones

as if removing the outer layer

will enable access to the understanding of my soul.

The cries of the smallest creatures,

the hairstreak butterfly

      the rusty patched bumble bee

            the eight-spot butterfly

                  the Kona giant looper moth

and countless others,

fill my ears with the crescendo of their silence.

Dark clouds--

not the life-bringing, heavy with rain, dark clouds--

but the ones that 

             vomit 

into the sky, 

cloyingly grasping

for every breath of fresh air.

The silence grows as the domino effect, 

               heralded by the silencing of the pollinators,

begins to cascade,

         quicker,

                    and quicker,

                                 and  quicker still.

I buck my earthen hips

straining to break free

belching forth fiery rivers of lava

raining lightning from the core of my being

weeping

as the slide to complete annihilation

 continues

         its

           extinctual 

                      path.

Self-preservation is paramount.

I fold in on myself,

preserving the essence of my core,

and begin to release the pieces that no longer serve me.

Sloughing off the detritus

Exfoliating the dead cells.

I will survive. 

I will let go of what continually destroys me. 

  I shed what I don’t need,

         don’t want,

              refuse to carry forward.

I continue my circling journey to hibernating self-preservation

letting centrifugal motion carry away the excess.

I hold what is essential to me

knowing that I can return

when death has removed the blemishes.

I will stretch into the new beginning,

allowing my being to expand, once again,

through dream-remembered skies.