Twilight

2029 – twilight.
I gaze across the pied hills
to the smoky ridges receding in the distance.
Fires on the hillsides reveal the encampments of those who remain,
those who’ve refused their agenda.
Like myself, they are refugees in their own country.

Overhead,
drones carry out their grim task
spewing miasma over every living thing
that struggles to remain,
as the cold night of winter closes in.

It was long ago now
Since most died in the purge
the great winnowing of souls from flesh,
the sterilizations, the depraved “help,”
like a spreading reaper it coursed their veins
until their bodies could fight no more.

Several years have passed
since modifications began–humans into servomechanisms–
their new robotic reality,
warping will and intellect with flaunted malice
to serve their animus of man.

This morning,
above the mountains the sky’s a guileless blue–
the backdrop of my childhood days.
I think on them, reminded of my parents’ love–
their now-besieged promise of a shining life,
where once their ideals would lift all souls
and future was the birthright of every man.