In the shadow of towers, the grid’s ceaseless drone,
A question arises: what have we disowned?
We traded the forest for comfort’s high walls,
And now, in our plenty, a primal hunger calls.

Once kin to the forest, the river, the stone,
We danced with the moon, and the earth was our own.
No master, no measure, no clock to obey—
Just the pulse of the present, the gift of the day.

But the plow split earth, betraying the wild,
With every furrow, our freedom defiled.
The surplus grain fed hierarchy’s curse;
True liberty withered; life turned for the worse.

Time became shackles, earth parcels were claimed,
New monuments rose where dominion was framed.
The wild spirit broken, put neatly in line—
A cold, grasping order, profoundly malign.

Division of labor, the taming of seed,
The rise of the city, the logic of greed.
Hierarchy hardened where self-reliance had grown,
The chorus of the many usurped by the throne.

Now, alien and anxious, we pace the steel maze
Of flickering screens, hollow work, vacant praise.
We numb the deep sorrow, but never feel whole;
The constant ache of the empty, no words can console.

Civilization’s promise—luxury and light—
Yet our bondage grew tighter, eclipsed by the night.
Isolation deepens as the technosphere expands,
We’ve become cogs in a system, forgetting the land.

Still, memory lingers of laughter and light,
Of sharing and solace, of senses made bright.
A world where the borders of self were not stark,
And the night held no terror, the future no dark.

Can we shed the old lessons that splintered the soul—
The poison of mastery, the cult of control?
Recall in our sinews the wisdom we hold—
Reclaim in the wilding the story retold.

Let us question the bargain, the progress we claim,
The ruins we build in civilization’s name.
For Earth whispers, waiting while the last forests sing strong,
Echoing the eden where the heart has forever belonged.