Tensions gather: world in a trance

emblazoned leaves begin a dance

In the winds that sweep our mother

{Gaea to all Hellenes;

"Earth" she be to other dress}

And dry the faces of the men

And women who brave the tosséd mess.

Soldiers training for the fall

In the war that will enthrall

The earth and peoples of the earth

And all the living in its berth.

Captains calling for a drill

In harshest freeze: Boreal chill

That burns the faces of the men

soldiers all, march towards an end;

(An Ending Ends all Endings!)

Armies moving out to meet

anthropoi seek the shield or sheet

{Perchance them luck allows avoid

a tempest raging on geoid}

and scorch the homes and towns and lands

of all that live upon the brand:

Herakles but overlay,

the Titan Lord the weight {wait?} betray.

Things are coming to a head

As winter cloudbanks: shadow steles

Now are built 'twixt Zeus and 'Ellas.

All cower in the roll of thunder,

No messenger now Basilei needs,

Announces grim {his sky's asunder}

FINAL WAR: our hasted blunder.

Questions {myriad their number}

Breech the minds

In wizened skulls:

Those few who seek now to preserve

Some measure of our lost reserve.

Alas their charge came overdue

impotent force sees now this true.

Ares marches to consume

All that can {and can't in gloom}

Take up arms against his might!

Hades marching in the night

Thanatos the grim he joins

In solemn, cold, unfeeling step:

Forge the rivers!

Smash the damns!

Hell is loose upon our lands!

Fires burning!

Bombs explode!

Earth had been his sick demand:

This Ending Ends all Endings!

But from the ash

We'll rise again

A thorn to mock the dreaded crash

And live to see the land restored:

Our time here never left deplored