Nature Reclaiming
A Prose Poem
Towers crumbling down
Worn away by time and rain
Reclaimed by nature.
The buildings will fall, eventually, as time and rain cracks concrete and rusts steel, until they crumble, bit by bit, in great chunks and dust, forming heaps in roads once jammed with cars.
Rain washing away
Eroding with each droplet
Until it is gone.
Flood water shifting, lifting weights too heavy for streams until rivers have a course where people once walked, and green shoots rise, from cracks among the rocks, finding purchase where before there was none, weak and short-lived, they will die, allowing others to grow in their place.
Twisting vines will climb,
Around columns left exposed,
Fibrous roots digging.
Breaking apart the layers of industry from the inside, pealing back the past so that a new future can grow and all the towers, once home to people, will belong to nature, a paradise for trees growing from penthouse terraces, branches arcing over canyons filled with the multitude of life left unchecked.
Birds will soar and sing
Bright plumage all of their own,
Hopeful songs of life.
Human beings will return, but smaller and confined, to the ground and to themselves, until they learn to play their part.
Nature is stronger
Than a person’s self-belief
Time is stronger still.
© Chris Noonan
Thank you for reading.
