Beyond the Museum Glass (An Apology to the Trees)

The city's gut-punch,
every breath a stolen thing,
a shallow gasp against the concrete press.
Mornings, flat-grey, a metallic tang on the tongue,
like a dead TV screen,
no signal, no sound,
just the hum of my own unravelling,
a low-grade fever in the bones.
Sirens, a banshee shriek,
ripping through the thin fabric of what I thought I was.

Lost.

A piece of flotsam in the gutter's slick,
no compass, no goddamn direction,
just the low thrum of the ache, always the ache.
The world, a smeared watercolour,
a phantom limb throbbing in the void,
the stench of exhaust and rotting hope,
a suffocating, meaningless blur,
where even shadows cast no truth.

Then.

A crack in the concrete.
From the bitter earth, they rise.
The giants.
A primal, green religion, a silent, defiant refusal.
Their roots, deep-fisted,
clutching something true, something ancient,
in this fucked-up, broken land.
They swallow the acid rain, the poisoned air,
And still they stand.
Defiant. Unbowed.
Breathing out a roar of green,
a steady, indifferent pulse.

They are.

Unquestioning. Unadorned.
A vast indifference to our endless, clawing wars,
our gilded cages, our frantic, hollow shouts.
They offer solace, air, and shade,
a pure exchange, despite the brutal cuts we've made.
Yeah, the cuts.
From their pulsing wood,
We carve the pulp, the paper-thin deceit.
A forest's living heart, ripped and pulped,
to print the lies of hate, a fevered ink, contagious, vile,
the screaming headlines of division,
books that twist the truth,
every poisonous word,
a serpent's hiss.
We take their beauty,
their sheer, wild grace,
for disposable trinkets, a plastic tide,
for endless, mindless consumerist ends,
a glut of wants, a hollow pride.
A testament to human greed,
a gaping maw that swallows forests,
asking for more.

They turn the sacred into ash,
And one day, mark my words,
We'll pay to see their ghosts,
their skeletal forms,
behind museum glass, a silent, hollow, green past.

Yet still they stand.

A raw, wild grace,
a living truth in this godforsaken place.
And I, a fragment, begin to see.
Their existence, a stark, unwavering reply to the void.
Lift your eyes, then, see the reach,
the stretch, their interwoven limbs,
a clan, a commune, a silent, living conspiracy.
Across the roads we've gouged,
The asphalt scars, the deals we've brokered,
they build a bridge, a living pact, a vital, undeniable fact.
Each branch, a finger, seeking, finding, a fierce embrace,
a constant, quiet cure.
They hum a strength,
a primal surge,
a quiet, green, uncompromising, political urge.
And in that steadfast, sturdy grace,
a flicker, my own lost place,
begins to root, takes a deeper breath,
defying concrete,
defying death,
finding meaning in the stubborn green,
a fierce, quiet revolution.

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