In every walk in with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.
~ John Muir

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Ash.

Dust and ash.

Coal and dust and ash.

Trees, standing for thousands of years, dissolve in the wind. Mountains, reigning millennia supreme over wailing infants and able-bodied adults and failing elderly, tumble from their peaks. Oceans and lakes and rivers, wrapping around the globe for millions upon millions of miles, choke on silt of their own making.

They all used to be deep and dark and firm and frozen and unmovable and unshakable. But now...

Now the sky crashes. Now the earth tears.

Does the sky make a sound as it crashes to the earth?

Does the earth make a sound as it tears itself in two?

If no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

No one bears witness. Not a bluebird, for it has no tree. Not a cougar, for it has no mountain. Not a piranha, for it has no ocean or lake or river.

Where are the humans? Where are the rulers? Where are the people?

Gone, the wind whispers. Gone.

Gone where?

Destroyed, the ash mumbles. Destroyed...

Destroyed?

By themselves, the wind sighs. We are all that remains.

Surely not all?

All, the ash agrees. All alone...

But somewhere, deep within the earth, in its very core, someone—something—hears the silent plea. So Mother Earth forces herself to awaken.

The sky rumbles once.

Rain.

No birds take flight. No cats scurry for cover. No fish leap. But the wind sighs, the ash shifts, all in expectation.

Then...

A spark of color lights the barren landscape. No more than a flash of green, but it exists.

Grass.

It lives, and with it, the promise of life.

Perhaps coal and dust and ash remain. Dust and ash. Ash.

Ash...

And grass...

And me.