From ashes spread a plume of smoking guns
rising, billowing, bringing clouds of grief
to hills that bore the weight of sinking suns
… so set a silhouette without relief.
With night’s consent an intangible veil
wrapped itself to the sleeping lay of land,
napped itself in the nooks of dell and dale,
mapped itself to an open show of hand
that by dawn revealed itself as spanning
the breadth of a vast and volatile void
that emptily succumbed to the fanning
of an agent recklessly employed,
destructively deployed, to blackly-blotch
the vigilant sight of an active watch.

© Tim Grace, January 16, 2020