Shaken earth weeps
floods of ice in all lands,
attempts to cleanse itself.
We diseased cells have
metastasized, eaten
its forbidden flesh,
perforated its bones.
What it cannot shake
off it sweeps away
in wind or burns
off in fires. Glaciers
wear down what remains.
Everything known is now
extinct. Only new forms
emerge, scathed and
transformed from death
by cancerous greed—
into a fallen grace.
—Michael Dickel
©2018