His shoulders are hunched
His legs are crippled
His hearing is dull
And his voice barely audible
He sees unseeing the deadened factory
Stretching around his lonely abode
Once he’d run through the tall grass
And sung with the cacophony of birds
Laughed with the springing deer
And danced under a flooding sky
Basked in the sunlit space
And frolicked in the thundering stream
Smiled with the blooming flowers
And played with the towering trees
His forlorn gaze, deepened
A shudder escaped his composed face
As he awaited the final day
He wished he could do all that again
And not just stay
Amidst the immense industry
For he had been the only one
To retain his childhood home
Not fall for the lure of money
And sell it to pay his loan
Now it curled like a sleeping dragon
Around his lonely abode
Snoring nostrils puffing smoke
Just waiting for the day
To snap everything that lived
In one huge mouthful
Anything green, anything pure
He closed his eyes and turned back inside
He knew that fateful day wasn’t far
No one would listen to his words
The voice of a dying man
But he knew better
They were the ones, the ones who didn’t listen
Who would soon be part of the dying race
He sighed in relief
Knowing that his time would soon run out
Before the sleeping dragon could awake.