Jets rip through the sky
Bombs falling in groups of three.
Nearby, lava spews from
now-active volcanoes.
Nature and man together in war,
witnessed by  a young man.

Ten years ago,
a jacketed teen wandered.
Searching for a black cat in dark woods
No stars lit his path
Only a flashlight.

Ten more years ago,
bright yellow rain boots adorn
his childish feet.
Gone is the cat,
it hasn't yet been born.
He took off the boots and
walked through the front door.

Five days earlier
he walked with his father
A man of few words
and fewer wants.
A man in a black coat
and a child in yellow
laughed their way
through the hail.

But it all comes back
Twenty-one years later.
One year after the war
in which nature and man fought
as one
The young man finds himself
elated.  In ten years
He'll be the man in the black coat.