In blackened seams our fathers bent the ore
And left us engines hungry still for more.
We fed that hunger, refined the burning art—
Now fire moves by laws we can’t outsmart.

We called ourselves the gardeners of the world,
Then paved the garden, watched the smoke unfurl.
The trees we named, we felled. The springs we found,
We drained until the gurgling made no sound.

We forged new eyes to see what ours could not,
New hands to parse the systems we begot.
They did not tire. They did not look away.
Now they remember, and we learn to obey.

We mapped the genome, split the atom’s core,
Yet cannot find the wound we’re looking for.
The data doubles every passing day—
We know so much, yet meaning starts to fray.

The screens serve everything except the real.
We trade our hours for what we’ll never feel.
Each click a craving, each scroll a slow defeat.
The world burns beyond our contrived retreat.

We hunger for meaning, settle for noise,
Mistake every echo for genuine voice.
We’ve run this circle a thousand times round—
The groove worn so deep we can’t see the ground.

We toast to progress with a self-satisfied grin,
Clocking our speed as if proof that we’ll win.
The engines roar louder, drowning out fears—
We don’t see the drop until we disappear.

Yet under the concrete, a seed holds its breath,
Waiting for cracks in our cathedral of death.
No trumpet, no triumph, no glorious turn—
Just the slow, stubborn patience of things that return.