In The Pines ~ Khemmis

In a world where the night has forgotten the dark and the stars have been drowned by the city’s spark, Where the hum of the wires is the lullaby sung To the old and the weary, the restless and young, There wander a people who still hear the call Of the wind in the pines and the wildness of all.

They move through the alleys of neon and chrome, Yet dream of a meadow they once called home; They walk under cameras that watch from above, Yet carry within them a stubborn love For the silence of dusk and the howl of the breeze, For the whisper of God in the rustling trees.

They are penned like cattle in luminous pens, Their footsteps recorded again and again; Their neighbors, conditioned, keep watch from their doors, And the world keeps its ledger of minuses, scores. But the soul is a creature that cannot be tamed,
Not numbered, nor barcoded, branded, nor named.

For the heart is a wolf with a memory long, And the spirit a bird with an outlaw’s song; And the mind is a stallion that bucks at the rein, Resisting the fences of progress and pain. Though the world may be modern, metallic, and bright, There are embers of wilderness glowing at night.

The moose in the shallows, the fox in the den, The mare in the pasture remember when The world was a place where existence was grace, Where life was not measured by data or pace. And people, like creatures, still yearn for that day When the noise of the world will all fade away.

For freedom is older than wires or walls, And liberty deeper than courtrooms or halls; It lives in the marrow, it burns in the bone, It thrives in the places where one stands alone. And though the new age may be cold and unkind, It cannot extinguish the fire in the mind.

So the last wild ones wander — not broken, but bent, Not conquered, but patient, not silent, but spent; They wait for the moment when darkness returns And the stars pierce the sky with the truth that still burns: That all things created must one day depart, And God keeps His vigil in each living heart.

And when the bright towers collapse into dust, When the circuits go silent and rust eats the rust, The people will rise like the beasts of the plain And reclaim the old world that pulses again. For the wild is eternal, and so is the soul, And the universe waits to receive back the whole.

January 2, 2026

Justin O. Smith ~ Author

~ the Author ~
Justin O. Smith Has Lived in Tennessee Off and on Most of His Adult Life, and Graduated From Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, With a B.S. And a Double Major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – Minors in Military Science and English, for What Its Worth. His Real Education Started From That Point on. Smith Is a Frequent Contributor to the Family of Kettle Moraine Publications.