I wanted to start a poem with the word “twas”….. Shut up!
‘Twas the year of the Locusts
A time when the power
Of the land overlooking us
Came to devour
The name and the place
And the time and the hour
No matter how bitter
No matter how sour
It determined to eat
Every fish, bird, and flower
‘Til the rivers retreated
And all the trees cower
Now, because they know they are next
And it vexes them; surely
They will not eat trees?
For a mouthful of splinter
Will not do for winter
Nor summer, nor spring
Though the winds whistle in
And rip up all the deadness
Bringing greenness and redness
But the trees all lie headless
For the locusts eat wood
Would again, if they could
But they never did know
How to make more trees grow
They did not stop to ask
Just destroyed as they passed
Over field and fawn,
Forest, ridge, wheat and corn
Through the night ’til the dawn
For they can only spawn
More of their own, then withdrawn
They perish themselves
And the Grim Reaper delves
With cold fingers right into their souls
But he finds only darkness.
