XII. The Hanged One (Reversed)

THE REAPERS
by Colleen Anderson

We scatter the grains
    to waste on winds
furrow the lands
    before they’re felled
devour the crops
    before they’re sown
drink the waters
    before the rains

We seed the lies
    in the innocent
plant diseases
    in the healthy
grow unrest
    with whispered qualms
harvest destruction
    among the living

We are the reapers
    and gather death songs
        before the dying

Colleen Anderson (she/her) is a multiply-nominated and award-winning author with writing widely published in seven countries in such venues as Andromeda Spaceways, Lucent Dreaming, the award-winning Shadow Atlas, and Water: Sirens, Selkies & Sea Monsters. Her Rhysling-winning poem “Machine (r)Evolution” is in Tenebrous Press’s Brave New Weird. Colleen lives in Vancouver, BC, and her poetry collections, The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams (where THE REAPERS first appeared) and I Dreamed a World, and fiction collection A Body of Work are available online.