By Sol Dente, TIWP Student

In the east, the people know them by name
By the footprints they make in the rain, by the torrent
And screaming they take and they bring as they
Make a wake in the way of the floods
These giants that walk with the names of
Our friends, of the people we meet around
Bushes and bends, of the strangers we greet in the streets
filled to the brim with regrets of repeats
In the house, the tears on the cross pray
To a god who lives only miles away, but
Cannot yet seem to dismay
Over the lives of the people they take


In the west, the people know them by smell,
That faint tinge of burning, of screaming, of hell,
It follows us back from the toll of the bell
As they roam in the fields and the homes
We never quite seem to know them by name, like
That worn out, old phantom of rain that we chase
And embrace when it comes to erase
The things that we lost to the flames
These monsters that rage at our towns and our homes,
The cracking of shelves, the breaking of bones,

With the fire and storms and destruction they bring
Oh the names that we give to terrible things.