The Dragon Comes

The Dragon Comes, an original poem by Asher R.

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Go and look, and see its path,

Barren, black, the trail of wrath,

Its darkness consumes, both light and life,

Insatiable hunger of draconic strife.

 

Produce, consume, discard, repeat,

No matter the cost, or destruction you reap,

The greed of the worm lives on in man,

Its smog and annihilation from ourselves at hand.

 

Terrible fire, burning pits,

Knowledge and hubris do not well mix,

In pursuit of comfort, knowing and power,

From hence does come our reckoning hour.

 

With wings of steel, and smokey breath,

Now the dragon comes and brings death.

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This poem was inspired by Tolkien's New Year's lecture on dragons, and particularly the following excerpt:

If you want to see a dragon-trail just go and look. There they are smooth, slimed, blasted, barren – death to trees and hedges and green things: black with pitch of the nether pit, taking the local colour and the sunlight out of every landscape. There was a time (not long ago) when roads were white and yellow and grey and red with the color of the land. But a dragon has slimed them.

That passage, in reference to roads, reveals a view of industrial destruction of nature similar to a dragon's wrath. It provided me with the inspiration to write a poem representing the destruction of industrialization, fueled by excessive consumption, with a dragon.