Poem – Roots


Expanding on the importance of remembering where we came from, where the experiences took place that built our own individual foundation, is to look at the roots of society, cultures, and civilization.


Steel and glass twist
like the fires within
burning the walls
each barrier, each foundation.

The city’s remains entombed
beneath the melted elements
that hardened over time,
structures the founders erected
as a memorial, a show of power
a land claimed to build a new life.

What lies beneath the remains,
the fallen, underneath the sleeping city,
a brief reprieve when the sun sets
and the full harvest moon takes over.

A dark shroud descends over the sleeping city,
one by one the lights are dispatched,
the background hum gives way silence,
and night creatures that stir.

Recent fissures in the cement sidewalks
new roots grow deeper
trunks grow taller
soon the remains will be unknown.

Beneath the remains
fallen soldiers –
breathe their last breath, exhaled through sewer grates
think their last thought, the terminal image to be ingrained
carried forward for each remaining day,
whatever they bring to this place, and the next.

mao_underground_015
Image from http://blog.jonahkessel.com/2011/05/09/mao-underground-city/


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