Hereafter | Teen Ink

Hereafter

December 28, 2015
By Eric.X PLATINUM, Mason, Ohio
Eric.X PLATINUM, Mason, Ohio
24 articles 53 photos 8 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot from striking." - William B. Yeats


Hereafter
It lies
Within a forgotten forest
A beast of iron and steel
left behind to rust within the tangled brush
and creeping vines
It used to be mighty
Striking with flame and fury
Now the dragon lays silent
still, and
Slain, left behind
And forgotten
There are many like it
lying dead,
as mighty as they ever were
As a reminder
That no matter
How strong our steel
How big our armies
That in the end
It is only
temporary
Steel rusts
Armies die
After the empires fall
And the cities crumble
When the unending machine
of Humanity
Falls silent
Nature returns to reclaim
its rightful place
As the machines of war, left behind to rust and burn
are swallowed by the forests they once burned
When the beasts of legend
once more roam
Without the threat of
prowling hunters
and greedy
Men
When the last artifacts
creations
inventions of
Humanity
fade away into
the underbrush
And when
in a jungle
the last pieces
of a war machine
of forged steel
once mighty
fearsome
and Deadly
Rust away
and that
which we Destroyed
comes back
then nature has taken
its course
But evolution
is unpredictable
We can only
Pray
Hope
Wish
that they, who come next
for it is inevitable
will not make the
same
mistakes as we
For if we,
Humanity
have truly faded
Away
We will have taken
everything
Anything
with us
And leave behind
naught
but a planet
scorched
with nuclear fire


The author's comments:

I wrote this article after seeing a picture of an abandoned tank rusting in a forest, and wondering what that entailed.


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