In Ash and Ruin

All of the things which make your life precious And all the people you hold in esteem In a thousand years No one will remember The reasons you strived and felt pain The sources of longing and of love All burned away in fire And what remains is ash and ruin Blessed you feel to know yourself But very shortly you do not exist Great is the fall of the present Day fades to night and no one remembers All great despair at the coming dark State of decay that I know so well Forests and fields will fade away And what remains is ash and ruin Cultures and countries will fall And what remains is ash and ruin Fall from grace Your flesh and bone to dust The emphasis of your culture Your humanity is lost A song sung into the howling wind To deaf ears your praises sung If not by our own hand Death waits for you at the gates Your life never mattered And you are nothing, erased