Life Extinction

Life Extinction

First the bees went,

their hum replaced by a stillness

that rang in the ears like grief.

Then the rivers slowed,

wearing a film of dust,

their fish like coins buried and lost.

The trees leaned on one another,

roots curling inward,

leaves falling without seasons to guide them.

Cities sagged,

glass eyes blind,

doors open to wind

that no longer moved.

It began with greed,

hands stripping the ground bare,

turning soil to powder,

filling the sky with a choking haze.

The oceans soured,

their bellies lined with oil and plastic,

tides dragging the weight of our waste

until they refused to return.

Animals starved without warning,

the chain breaking link by link,

their silence spreading faster

than any sickness could.

In the end, the sky grew pale,

as if it too had emptied,

and the earth closed down quietly,

without witnesses,

only the echo of all we’d taken.