Lonely streets on an empty road borne of fear, wind and cold

It tears and rips like an animal to flesh

Streets no one will wander with the same awe as a couple in their first new home

Streets that mothers forbade their children from walking on a night

Streets where a man weeps in the dark during pouring rain

Streets that artists and musicians painted and played for the city

Good and bad, the road still led to somewhere perhaps slightly promising

And now they lead to nothing, nowhere, no bright lights, big cities, no speeding through your weekend change, or taking a trip for a night of fun.

All gone and deserted, all brought down to nothing but ghosts by war

Such is the fate of all things, that a war is lost or won

The only importance is in who wins at the end of the road and the ramifications of such victories- or losses

No little streetlights could stop it now, as it grows into insurmountable tidal waves as high as the sky

Crashing over and over into each coast, every corner of the earth

There is permanence in constant change.

No one can escape it.

(April 2020)