Excelsior?

It's fading so quickly, now
faint in the distance
    feigning to listen
         dying to be heard
A muddied flag in my muddled eyes
with a stain, a tear, in the
lower left-hand corner
It's rather pointless to mention
the brazen streak across the middle
    we all have it somewhere,
our last hurrah.
It sings with such finality but the tone
the tone wavers on
the second
to last note,
a mumbled scream in a dense forest.
This nature does not beckon,
She does not
Desire
But I will
crouch in Her canopy
    Ever Higher
         reaching for the silken tatters
    Ever Higher
         reaching for the last note
before it's all burned by the Sun:
crisp and unyielding,
    fertile dirt turned to stone.