Even now
on suburban terrace
of afternoon brooding
it bruises, even lacerates
those pristine images
of barefoot childhood.

It tumbles the trees, scars the hillsides
sends the jagged boulders trundling;
it shoves, pushes, scrapes, excavates
it bruises, lacerates; it amputates, eviscerates.

Its noise pervades
the innermost sanctuary of a brooding mind
it violates the peace we thought we’d made
sunders the truce, roughshods the sacrosancts.