Originally Posted by
Johnny Soul™
Language of the Lost: A Story from the Dead...
The maple syrup oozed from my fathers canteen on a mountain of pancakes,
our chimney carried the fumes through the drowsy valleys that surrounded the landscape.
Burly yawns, from a beard of brothers, grizzly groggy – making sounds that the bears make,
mothers coffee grounds into a manmade mini oil spill, the kitchen a fountain from the fan blades.
Down in the spare caves, the mother and her cubs toss and turn, while the hounds wait, howling in serenade,
the fly fishermen’s lure skips – skimming, rippling, into the mouth of a trout of seven shades.
A butterfly drifts proudly with finesse and grace around, in and out of November rays…
the sparrow barrels in and pounds the suspenseful space, penetrating - less than an ounce of aggressive rage.
The Trees here are a hundred years old, now they're at an adolescent stage,
their at an evanescent age susceptible to tiny beetles - spreading plague.
Clouds of insects prey upon these trees like their being drowned in pepper spray,
these beetles wipe out several acres every day – a deadly strain
- from the Appalachians to the Aspens down to the Everglades.
It’s not getting cold enough to kill the beetle who survives the winters milder temperatures due to the weather change,
the size of a grain of rice, embeds itself with jowls of feathered fangs.
Filled with glycol, a natural anti-freeze – it leaves a blue telling stain,
once largely protected from the grave beetle cause of the altitudes shielded by cold shelter; the fate
of these trees are nearing functional extinction in large portions of the nether range.
When catastrophic fires meet torrential rains -
the forest grows at an exponential rate…
it's sobering to see a whole mountainside drained of life from the ledge of a plane.
The scattered cottages on the outskirts embezzled in flames; the scent of resinous haze,
the steam rising from the mop bucket; couple capfuls of pine sol; chemical vape,
the ecosystem cleansing itself of the beetle and its skeletals frames.
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear, does it still make a sound?
Or is the sound of beetles all you hear while you head for the gate?
Branches, dead in your wake, everywhere you step and it breaks.
The deer jumps out in front of you bucking – bluffing – before it gently escapes...
nestled in the face of the tree, the beetle gorges to its stomachs content and decays.
A little bit of the oxygen in the room was just kept and encased, misplaced, distressed, you awake?
If you wander out in the forest you may never be found... you better stay.
Twenty miles into town, they say you can hear our dogs barking on a clear November day.
Now where are they?