by Bruce Boston
Beneath an ever cloudy sky
that never rains a drop,
Arcadia is slowly dying.
Dead limbs fall to the ground.
Blackened leaves flutter down
in a constant whispering rush.
Bare trees assume postures
grotesque and startling.
Beneath this dark hemisphere
where pastures once thrived,
fields are filled with weeds.
Nettles and thorns abound.
Beast and fowl have fled,
all humans long before.
Only the God Pan remains,
once King of Arcadia when
it flourished with life.
He strolls the abandoned
glens and desiccated fields,
playing his wooden flute
to harsh and mournful songs,
feeding on that darkness
as once he fed on life.
He has grown in stature
to twice his normal size.
He is now Pan Furioso
and his fur has taken
on a far darker shade,
his hooves are sharper,
his thoughts are tinged
with holocaust clouds.
And once Pan ventures
into the world beyond,
he discovers threads
of darkness have spread
from Arcadia and all
has become infested.
He sees the torrent
cities and the faces
of the tangled crowds,
the trash landscapes.
Arcadia is long dead,
the idyll lost forever.
And Pan understands
his tunes must always
be stained with reality.