The eastern wind is blowing
Cold and remorseless like steel
Smoke is rising slowly yet quicker
Than can ever be saved by a quill

Forlorn is that grey strand
And brighter than dark of night
Darker than the flame that produced it
Never burning yet always burned

In the dying embers of the blaze
Lie countless bodies of timber
That wood will then transform
Itself into shapes like a breath
From blackened carcass into grey
And from grey to paper white

No eyes will be there to read
But a hand may be there to be seared
Though hands like the timber will wither
Smoke will never cease to rise
Blown by the eastern wind