The drummers stared into the rising s...

OH HOLY FIRE, WROUGHT
AND MIGHTY : TAKE ALL
TO YOUR PLEASURE.

OH HOLY FIRE, ANOINT
THE LOWLY MOUNTAINS,
THE STILL EARTH,
HER TIRED TOMBS

BAPTIZE THE REALIZED
TAKE ALL TO YOUR PLEASURE

The
rhythm road atop the pouring flame: rampant and in rampage--the chant
carried through the entire jungle, the echoes giving rise to the birds
above the gasping smoke. Such birds served as fleeting witness to the
effigy.

The drummers built there procession, each emphatic
strike causing a rise of starved flame--the chanters sang their prayer
in ecstasy. Their purpose known and carried.

A wild flower,
violet and golden turned to ash in but an instant, the rhythm turning
its crumblings to veiled curtain of worlds to which even the birds
could not decipher. A jaguar, in her desperate fleeting, ran at her
fullest speed only for her, too, to be swallowed whole.

The Heathens Prayed for Rain.

FIRE, FIRE, OUR
WORLD ON FIRE

They
chanted, the rhythm so ferocious, so damning, so alluring---- the
jungle ignited, the crackle of snapped branch added but a whisper of
dissonance to the rhythm, the tender rhythm, the monstrous rhythm beget
of those who had the appearance of mere mortals yet were not
consumed--their song exultant to massacre, their prayers merciless to
all the fallen, all that was brought to kneel decrepit.

SWALLOW, SAVIOR,
SWALLOW--HAVE
YOUR FILL
NOW IS TREMOR.

And
the rivers shriveled until its rapid flux was but a gasp of rising
steam. And so the earth was a mirror to the night and void was lost
between the falling trees which toppled and crushed the arid dry earth
beginning its acrid birth into waste land.

And so poured the vexed rain of the swallowed ash, the flames having their fill.

(SPACE ON THE PAGE)

The drummers stared into the rising sun, their rhythm having reached
its demise. The chanters before them, their exhausted heads at the
drummers feet.

The shrill amongst the scorched earth--the
prevalent hallowed mourning poured first from the sky, piercing from
the overcast shawl and turning the haggard haze fluorescent. The day
was heavy with remnants, half tales, tired lores, arid leaves lost and
spared.

And the stern lulling turned the struggle to a sleep.

Everything
was bowed and reverent and genuflected to the sweeping cadence of
nature that harbors and strikes and relieves any notion of end. The
fled birds returned as ravens perched on charred ruminations, bone and
dark ember melded in eerie uniting. They knew the end and guzzled it
eagerly.

The end, the end, the mighty end, the tired end, the
quiet smolder, in settling of figment and semblance--ash returned,
again, to its earth, and the brazen sun shone throughout.

The
chanters arose, their eyes emblazoned and christened with zest, and
sailed in graceful flutter into the vast, open sky. The drummers then
turned from the sun, their assembly in a single row, their posture
certain and undeniable. In unison, they heralded a final strike of
their drums and leaped, returning themselves to the heavens.

And
so was born a mighty wind, mighty and resounding, that felt deeply the
naked earth's face, spouting skyward her impotence, barren bones and
corpse no longer hidden, truly exposed and left as testament--all that
was free was made to rise, all that had fallen was left to fall apart.