After the Storm

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The path, a serpentine and muddy swell,
was hemmed with puddles where the heavens fell.
All things, in colorless and tangled skirts,
hid pools of light where silent wonder
had once embroidered every vibrant hue.
Within the mud, the ancient footprints grew
like hollow smiles that yearned for tears to lie,
as twilight blurred the canvas of the sky.

Liberty, once warm, was now a colder thing—
a storm that stilled the birds and dulled their wing.
The world, a fractured prism, soft and pale,
displayed each angle of its bitter tale,
a straight-edged shriek that echoed to the bone,
too loud to hear, too lonely to be known.

A frozen mind, in such a placeless place,
could see no past, no future, nor a face.
The eyes of youth, the old man's knowing gaze,
were lost within this unremembered maze.

A final bomb, suspended in the air,
was held by something, maybe God, in prayer.
The only choice, a final, pure design:
the genesis of a world, and a new mind.

The mind now ventures where the night winds blow,
with hope's bright characters, a guiding glow.
Rough roads become a path of polished stone;
the angels sing their song for color, known
as memories for futures yet to be,
a new creation, now at last set free.