Two storms raged on opposite ends

Of a world once owned by beasts and men

The waters churned and the skies opened

To flood and flush away their sin

.

The men had raped the land of all her worth

Plundering, pillaging, and scorching the earth

They murdered her beasts, their intentions perverse

So she punished them by withholding childbirth

.

The babes who had already been growing in womb

Were miscarried and buried within sacred tombs

Women became barren and prayed to the moon

For their menses to reappear and to reappear soon

.

A single gray hair on the beard of the youngest man

Caused an entire nation to dance under the moon with their clan

Chanting and drumming, they begged for a divine hand

To bestow upon them a fertile woman and man

.

For thirty-two seasons they prayed and held hope

Until one day an old man pulling a pig with a rope

Thought he heard the sow whisper, “I don’t want to go.”

“Did you speak?” he replied, and he thought she said, “No.”

.

The old man stumbled and fell into the street

He mumbled something about needing to find a new source of meat

He brushed off his pants and got to his feet

“This day will bring rain,” said a bird from its beak.

.

A gray-haired woman and two elderly men

All witnessed this black-feathered bird speak the omen

A beast could now be understood by a human

Mother Nature had not accepted their restitution

.

The first raindrop fell on the brow of a farmer

The second and third on a warrior’s armor

The fourth on the bared feed of man who had taken slumber

Against the trunk of a sixty-five foot tall Douglas fir

.

Thunder rolled across the sky from the west to the east

Lightening struck relentlessly and the heavens released

The storm strengthened and split into two fearsome beasts

Reclaiming the land and all its inhabitants; living and deceased.

.

The two fearsome storms raged on for three years and ten days

Flooding the land, washing it all away

When it seemed all men, women and beast had been slayed

The heavy rains halted and the skies parted their grey

.

To reveal the sun once again and her magnificent blue skies

Ocean waters began to settle as Mother Nature hushed her cries

The land began to heal all which had been compromised

As the sun kissed the earth again and again to fertilize

.

A green sprout shot up from the side of a mountain

It reached for the sun then others joined in

Green grass began to blanket the land once again

And millions of flowers bloomed as Mother Nature grinned

.

Creatures that had sought refuge within the mountain’s protected caves

Emerged one-by-one for the next several days

They squinted their eyes remembering the sun’s bright rays

And ran to the fields to frolic and graze

.

Horses and cows swatted flies with their tails

While the birds, geese, and chickens feasted on snails

Lions, tigers, and leopards pounced on small quail

And in the distance could be heard the singing of whales

.

Bears foraged for berries while squirrels gathered acorns and walnuts

Cheetah’s rekindled their instincts and vultures feasted on their prey’s guts

Chipmunks stuffed their cheeks and termites turned downed trees into mulch

Every animal took what it needed without ever taking too much

.

On a mountain in the east a sound rang out through the air

An unfamiliar rise and fall which caused the beasts to stop and stare

Emerging from a darkened cave came a lovely human pair

And on the woman’s hip laughed a babe with golden hair

.

The babe had barely learned to walk but was a babe nonetheless

It drooled and smiled and cried and clung tightly to its mother’s dress

The mother had given birth to it while in the cave under duress

A gift from Mother Nature, indeed they had been blessed

.

The beasts trepidatiously made their way up the mountain to the lass

The mother sat the little girl with springy curls down within the soft green grass

The girl cooed and stared with eyes as blue as the skies that had amassed

A miracle which had been gifted within Mother Nature’s scornful wrath

.

A white speckled fawn was the first to approach the baby curiously

It sniffed the air around her and the lass reached to pet the beast baby

The fawn relaxed; laid upon the soft grass beside the giggling wonder

The man reached for his bow but his babe told him no by laying her sweet head upon her

.

The babe grew as babes do as the seasons changed and months turned into years

At the end of year three she revealed that she could talk to the beasts and they back to her

She began to teach her parents and beasts how to converse with one another without words

And because of this little girl with springy blonde curls, man and beast learned how to converse

.

Man taught beast what it knew while beast taught man all it knew too, coexisting as never before

A testament to how life’s strife can be viewed as an opened window after a every locked door

The beasts and the men learned to live off the land without destroying all they had before

The girl grew and matured teaching every human which had endured, and they flocked to her in scores

.

[The End.]