"Thoughts In Concrete"
The sky has folded itself into gray,
a soft ceiling with no weight,
and under it, the giants stand.
They were poured in another century,
straight walls, severe arches,
a geometry that meant to say forever.
But forever is a negotiation.
Green came first as a rumor
in the seams where water slept.
Then as a question, root by root,
until the question became an answer
that draped itself over every ledge.
Now moss writes in slow cursive
down the flanks of what we called permanent.
Vines stitch themselves through arches
like sutures closing an old wound,
and the rain, patient doctor,
keeps the bandages wet.
Step close. You can hear it,
the hush of chlorophyll against cement,
the way stone learns to exhale
when a fern takes up residence
in the hollow of its throat.
Nothing here was surrendered.
Nothing was conquered.
This is simply what happens
when time sets its jaw
and nature keeps its appointment.
The building has not died.
It has been translated
from the language of architects
into the dialect of rain,
where every syllable is green
and every sentence ends
in more life.