The Storm

A storm is raging
on the horizon,
its convoy is proceeded
by drips and drab
caused by the tension
that's released through the rain,
a hurtling, swirling, howling wind
occupies the sound
that is exerted
from the brass, hollow tubes
of the horns of war
that play faintly in the distance,
soft as a new morning
in the silent valleys
of the country of the dead.
Shimmering grass stood tall
never accustomed to the heavy fall
of the foot, or the hoof, or the paw
and spring waters never broken. Stones
never turned: nought left as a reminder
of the lives that passed before,
nought,
but the petrified stalks;
desiccated shapes of what civilisation
had been before the storm.