The promise of better days

The flowers will fade to stone and the hills will choke the rivers

we will swim in the sludge and paddle to keep our heads above

Our eyes scanning the skies for a sight of the stars beyond the smog

The people in boats still dream of children and music but avert their eyes

from the bobbing heads in the lonely seas that have turned their guts out

The fish have gone and so have the dolphins, only the barnacles cling on

The guardians were asleep when their need was the most

may I smile, I wonder, at this cruel twist of fate

for we were promised better and we aspired for much that wasn't

It was not at the end of the street, so we built it further; we were told

the road would end at the oasis of cool darkness and warm moonlight

and so we built it with our bleached bones and the fossils of dinosaurs