Natural Terror

• Nathan Woo, Grade 5
• Poetry
• 2021

Light bursts through the trees
Pouring ashes in the seas.
Glowing embers have no singing
But hear the death, destruction, crackling.
Onward, heat surges through the land
Miss the clearing - a small band
Of animals, chiming with tales of home
An orchestra of sorrow, a melancholy tome.
Pillars of smoke circle the sky
The creatures wait for safety, by and by
Then, as the sun puts the terror to sleep
The animals emerge, with a flight, a crawl, a leap.
To embrace the aftermath of what happens every year
And to take in the beautiful, mourning silence they hear.