My Epitaph

I was born high up in the snow covered mountains where the air is fresh and clean.
My time was spent in gorges and crags where eaglets fall from above, with loving parents flying down to teach them how to fly.
In this golden paradise I found my way into the mountain side and then underground where I silently moved along until one day when the mountain burst open, I was set free to meander sideways, this way and that way creating bends and flooding plains where levees rise above me to form landing places along the bank sides.
Now moving ever faster, I flow where forests grow creating rapids and waterfalls as I go.
Then with the help of the wind, the trees wave to me saying thank you for the nourishment we need in order to grow.
Fish and fowl abound along the side streams that feed me and I am as happy as can be.

But now I see disaster ahead of me
Like monstrous mechanical ants the rumbling is near and soon the trees are hacked down one by one' then stripped of their arms that so lovingly waved to me.
Now to my shame, like corpses in a row they are tumbled into me, to transport them to the sea.

Years pass by while the merciless heat consumes me in this barren desert where nothing grows
Fish and fowl are skeletons lying in puddles next to me, while broken hearted I wither away and die. A petrified willow turned into stone is my epitaph, that no one will ever see.