an attempt at poetry

chapter 53: 'How the ground learned to hold'

We are humans, and the human breed builds,

They make and create until they lose their sense of self,

So much they won't stop until towers touch the blue,

And empires prove they bit more than they could chew,

So then the time comes when they fall,

They are dismantled, ripped apart,

Savagely, relentlessly,

So they may never get back up,

Walls have fallen,

Tears have been shed,

One question remains,

'Will I live after I bled?'

If the sea's still blue,

And grass breathes green,

Humans will rise-

And get up on one knee,

But today the sea is red-

Too many among the dead,

Still, somewhere in the quiet after,

Someone kneels with foreign grace,

Not to build an empire,

Just to clear a space,

She moves some rubble,

Brushes dust from the ground,

As if to say-

Here. Try Here. You are not bound.

The ground rises beneath her-

Then falls,

As if hesitating- It breathes,

She learns what helps by watching,

What startles, what steadies,

She shifts what can be moved,

Then leaves what cannot,

While most build upward,

She widens the ground-

Making room for what cannot yet stand,

So even the fallen can be found,

When the days feel too heavy,

She breaks them open into pieces,

Like she's just planting a tree,

And watching it blossom in sequences,

She simply plants that seed,

Does not tell it to grow now,

Only waits long enough,

For it to remember how.