By B. T. Freeman
The captain goes up with the ship
leaving us behind
the originals and new neighbors,
on a lump of blue rock
We aren’t sad to see him go
perhaps we can salvage the land,
help her heal
Recovery is a long road of looping
wonders work themselves from the sea
the fires cool, the air breathes
a bird I’ve never seen brings a rainbow,
and I knew we’d be okay
The captain now lives on a red rock
but we don’t answer his calls.
He writes “extinct – tragic”
next to our names in his history tweets
we know the people who survive
grow from light found through the
deepest shadows can’t drown us;
we hibernate through history
when we wake, the world shakes
its aches and gains new energy:
shedding the arthritis of stiff hate,
which abandons Earth for a sleepier fate.
Where there’s a sword to be swung, song to be sung, or tale to be spun, there B.T. Freeman (they/he) is. AKA “the sword-wielding chaos goblin,” they are a Hoosier actor-combatant & writer. Plays on NPX. Poetry in Querencia Press, Beyond the Veil Press, Clinch, and others.