Silence at the end of the world

Warm dust blowing and covering,
mantling the broken stone,
hiding the twisted wreckage
in an effort to forget.

The stunned sky weeps and clouds
in a film of powdered death;
charred slivers of confident cities,
scream at a foreign sun.

Houses open-mouthed bare their souls,
voice silent protest at their fate,
as splintered eyes of glinting disbelief
reflect the washed, grey light.

The seed is buried in the earth,
cradled in the bitten soul;
fear warms it, terror nurses it,
hope keeps it alive.

Lifeless but hot with memory,
the cringing land moves warily;
creeping, crawling, crying,
it sighs and laughs and sighs.

No ear to hear a breaking wall,
no eye to watch it die - alone it returns,
as the wiser wind whistles silent
through each smiling metal skeleton.

http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/prompt-150-sounds-like-a-wordle/

N.B. This is a poem I wrote when I was fifteen when nuclear war was felt to be more of a possibility.