The Canon Whisper'd Through the Swaying Leaves

5: The Ether Souls wherewith were Prophets Born

The desert conquer'd all the lands of North

with spreading sands that piled into dunes

and carv'd the scape to continental bones

with raging, arid storms of jagged grains,

a harsher place than any other known

across the planet's face, where none surviv'd

until the Sky was able to create

the vultures and the camels, hardier

than other creatures and resourceful too,

for carrion sustain'd the appetites

of those that circled long enough in wait,

and water—rare about this biome's land—

was seldom sought out by the sated beasts.

Humanity—adaptable as all

of history had proven—too surviv'd,

constructing shelter of the chisell'd stones

to shade them from the blazing sun of day

and insulate from frigid cold of night

for dual centuries whilst th'other lands

to west and south and east began to thrive,

constructing cities out of wood and stone

and mining precious metals underground

and harvesting the bounties of the soil.

But soon this came to end upon the Shift

whereby our Mother's hand began to sweep

the Northern sands across the continent,

engaging in a storm a decade long

which saw the desert push'd from north to west

to blanket all the Western continent.

With rising dunes consuming steppes and woods

twas time for those of th'West t'adapt anew,

preserving th'architecture of their towns

so typic'lly of wood, whilst forming new

constructions of the stone from 'neath the sands,

additional and more until their homes

were stone entirely and th'wood was gone

with th'years of dry and buffeting of sand.

Twas at this first of Shifts of desert sands—

this bicentenary occurrence—that

the Father, who was gazing down upon

the Mother in Her twisting agony,

did hatch a plan to right humanity

and save His love this malady She bore.

He turn'd toward the Western peaks at noon—

the tallest of the ranges on the coasts—

and summon'd of His virtues infinite

the courage He would need to pierce Himself

again as once He did when rent apart

so as the sun did cross the mountain peaks