They called the wilderness a thing profane,
And built their gods from geometry and gold,
But I have stood unshielded in the rain,
And felt a truer scripture in the cold.

We raised our temples from the plundered stone,
And thought the heavens owed us endless fame,
But root and rain remember flesh and bone,
And something older wakes without a name.

We chained the rivers, stole their unbound hours,
We told the forests where to stand and fall,
I’ve seen the torrent swallow back the towers,
And ivy etch the fractures in the wall.

Now wolves preside where kings once held their court,
Rainfall anoints the silence of the hall,
No hand remains to grasp, command, extort,
Only the echo answers when you call.

I watched the sea reclaim what it had lent—
It bore no wrath, nor knew the small from great,
It had no use for treaty nor intent,
And did not pause to contemplate our fate.

I’ve knelt in ruins where the mosses grow,
And pressed my ear to what the stones have known,
And learned to mourn with things that live and go,
Not feast inside a kingdom built on bone.

So let our thrones dissolve into the moss,
Let every wall return unto the rain,
The earth is waking where we hung our cross,
And takes us back with neither love nor disdain.

And when they tell of all we threw away,
Let them sing of hubris, ruin, loss—
I have walked where deer browse the motorway,
The wild inherits, unaware of cost.