The price of failure - as told by Moon

Before Man came

He was here

peacefully grazing in My Light

the Elders told tales of Him

Ubhejane, the strong One, they named Him

and so, in the flickering firelight His Legend was born

His story drifting across the night sky

joining those of the other Guardians

– Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, and Leopard.

 

All was in balance.  

All was well.

 

But as the cities grew, the forests fell

darkness turned to dread

I gazed down upon a brutal war

when my Light was full instead

 

Powerless I watched the terror grow

as greed crept under cover of the night

the stars wept down as he was hacked alive

the grasslands drenched in blood

 

While miles away in a shiny world

where money matters more

Fools count their gold and the souls they’ve killed

as Death piles up on the floor

 

Fractured people mask the Empty

with status they’ve bought but never earned

to lull thirsting souls which wander lost

disconnected from this Earth

 

The Dragon, sensing weakness, turned towards Africa

as one by one the Guardians faded

betrayed and slaughtered

their majesty reduced to stories around the cooking fires

and pictures in glossy books

to piles of horns, bones, tusks, and skins

which still whispered of sunlight on the faraway bushveld

 

The Wind traced pictures of them in the red sands of Africa

and the water birds remembered at the pan’s edge

when the Thunder Gods stormed the empty grasslands

 

The Dragon flew lower

scorching the last of the wildflowers

and soon the free spaces were covered by concrete towers 

rising up to the sky where eagles used to soar

 

I am lonely for the Guardians

I miss their shadows playing on the savannah

as they grazed

or slept

or roared

just being

asking for nothing

even the Stars seem dimmer now.

 

3 February 2022