Birth

First comes the wind

tearing trees right off their roots

            Father?

Second comes the ripple

popping like bones breaking tendons snapping

What’s happening?

Third comes the thunder

cliffs splitting, mountains shattering

The ground becomes the sky

            Save me.

My father’s city crumbles

Rubble on writhing ground

Screams of hundreds maybe thousands sinking through the dust

Father, please!

But we cannot move at all

The earth, she holds us hostage

As she opens to her core

Her womb, it’s nearly bursting

As something warps within

The mountain shrieks in pain

As twisting writhing burning

Births a beast that’s born of flame