Meadow

She comes in like the tide.

A constant rolling and roiling. An uncomfortable continuation. Look at her and weep. Babylon has fallen and crumbled away into ruin. She is a relic of an era long swept away.

And yet—

She lingers like poison oak and grows back new, regenerated. A thing of mythical proportions wrapped in up in the most unlikely packaging—small eyes and crooked teeth. Ears notched like archaic killing posts. Bring out the dogs, she is ready to be hunted. Quiet dark. The sounds of a screech owl from the top of a pine, whose branches sag sullen with fresh snow. She stands in this moment alone, breathing in the cool air, exhaling plumes of smoke.

Those savage ways have drained out of her and she, for once, feels the weight of time on her narrow shoulders. Echidna lips at the snow, uncovering tiny shoots of grass, which she gobbles in her ragged state. Her journey has been long and unforgiving. It has been full of tragedy, which has bled her dry.

For now, she paws at the powdery ground. She looks for any sign of life beyond her own, which would only be a thorn in her sore side. Her cough, which comes out loud and painful from her lungs, echoes around her in the night.