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.