Victor, Or Victim?

• Raymond Han, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2011

Peering down, colonies of trees below,
kissed with the golden rays of sun,
for they, untouched for many millennia,
shone a glistening green, a utopia amidst man.

Cockatoos and corellas quarrelled above the canopy,
tiny silhouettes pinned on the emerald backdrop.
Nature united as one, though I felt trouble brewing,
for far in the distance flickered a fiery red.

It came upon the vegetation,
a vicious leviathan,
devouring, destroying,
draining life out of the trees like a mammoth oil pump.

‘til in the barren landscape, shrouded with solitude,
all that remained was a grief-stricken wattle.
It stood its motionless vigil; it had braved the fire.

A victor, or a victim?