The Last October Poem by Robert Eckstein

We are the October people
Walking slow across the seared and flattened plain
Shuffling through the fallen stones and ashes
Waiting for a spring that may never come again.
The sun shines dimly through the settling acrid haze
Of cities pounded in short seconds into dust
The shadow of a child burned into concrete
Shows gray against the new smooth greenish glaze.
I turn one head and grimly smile at my companion
Her left upper arm slowly entwines with mine.
A mutated reptile on a stone shares sins of our forefathers
Food, food, O food, is now our only cry.
Gorged, we move on, then filled with sudden anguish, stop.
The lizard's food was hot. We slowly start to die,
And in delirium of passing see destroying angels,
Lethal mushrooms, red and purple, climbing high.