VALLEY OF THE DEAD
Oh! Valley of the dead, beautiful valley of sinister hills and poisonous rivers
Drawing in people like beautiful nature
Through mirage of life … to death’s reality
Once they lived here, peaceful and forgiving – among themselves
A content people on the mirage of life
… seemingly full of promise
Then you invited more in.
Full of adventure and purpose they came
Drawn in by your beauty and stillness
Spirits begged them to leave – spirits of experience
But you drew them in further … and further … to meet them
… those people of old
Greed grew and flourished
Discontent grew and blossomed
… into war
War claimed lives
The hillsides littered with bodies – bruised and battered and sliced
The bodies filled the valley
Once green leaves, now stained with deathly red … congealed in hopelessness.
The rivers came, sinister rivers of red and black.
They flew down the mountains.
The people of old … the people of new
Their greed for the valley flooded the river
Flooded it with their death.
The valleys waited, silently
The rivers flowed, swiftly
Quickly, to cover the evidence
The mirage once shattered now needs rebuilding.
Decomposing bodies, decomposed
The stench … it cleared off.
So stands the valley of the dead
Ready, silently, waiting, watching
… hoping, for another flood.
(Written in January 2000)
Kim's Diary 