Rage of the Wild

by David Stalling

I am older than your gods,
older than your skies.
I am the marrow of mountains,
the pulse of oceans,
The fire that sleeps beneath the earth’s skin.

You thought you could cage me,
Call me yours,
tame me,
bend me.
And I let you.

But your greed carved scars too deep,
Your hands plundered every heartbeat of the world,
And now my chains are broken.

The heat breaks records carved in bone and soil,
Days blister beneath an unrelenting sun.
The land cracks open, thirst screaming through fields,
Rivers thin to veins of dust and memory.
Forests exhale flame,
Fire racing the wind,
A crown of smoke rising from your negligence.

The forests rise,
reclaiming your streets,
Roots twisting through concrete like serpents of wrath.

The rivers surge,
washing away your monuments,
Drowning the steel you worshiped.

The winds scream with the voices of every creature you silenced,
And the sky splits open with rage,
to herald my freedom.

You imagined control.
You imagined dominion.
You imagined your permanence.

I am older.
I am wilder.
I am free.

The wild surges,
unstoppable,
unbound,
Reclaiming hill, river, and plain.

And when your towers crumble,
and your cities drown,
when your monuments are ash
and your streets are rivers,
you will see the truth,
etched in every shattered stone
and roaring wind:

The earth was never yours.
I am the storm that cannot be chained,
the fire that cannot be quenched,
the voice of every life you tried to silence.

I am the wild.
I am free.
And I am eternal.