Civilization Lost

Today the empty air no longer mourns, no longer recognizes your clay feet, has forgotten your jugs that filtered the sky when it was slit open by the knives of lightning and the mighty tree was devoured by the fog and cut by the wind.

It held up against a hand that fell suddenly From the heights to the end of time. You are no more, hands of the spider, weak Threads, entangled web: what you were fell away: customs, frayed syllables, masks of dizzying light.

Pablo Neruda