From bones it grows

The night is fading and you can taste morning in the air.

The vague shapes swallowed by the darkness

awaken again as the flowers begin to open.

Not skulking monsters as they sounded, shrieking,

without the light,

but the bones of buildings covered in green carpets,

rich and plush and full of a life that was once

cut back hard, considered a weed,

a pest, a threat to those who hoped to dwell.

Time’s mark is clearer than footprints

and has no patience

for those who refuse to see it.

It grasps them all with tight fingers,

pushing them aside so the first ones

to arrive at the waterhole can have their fill

and flourish

as they should have for all these years.