One day, they came for the trees.
Their branches, trembling with each mortal blow,
Reluctantly, painfully, succumb to gravity. 
Their leaves shriek as the diamond blades, 
Singing a piercing falsetto, begin the dismemberment.
The mynahs, ever-present, dance round exhumed roots
As the moths’ children desert the dying trunks
Whose rings will no longer grow old.
Suddenly, we savour our first afternoon, born in the sun
Freed from the melancholic foliage’s embrace.

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One day, they came, to turn dust into dwelling.
Forging soil and steel into leviathans that defy, 
The absence of silence is constant
As cranes, their yellow wings outstretched,
Dip their heads deep into the scarred earth.
For six hundred days they laboured, 
Blotting the sun further than the trees dared
Till the cranes took flight. 
Suddenly, through slanted lines, 
The leviathans’ pulsing heart 

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Is exposed, and the mutilated hill now a pool of solid screed
The giants stand majestic, looking down with threads 
Of light, not minding the squall’s passage 
And we gather at the forecourt of fallen stars, taking in
The sight of faces flashing by, 
The din of hushed voices
As they came, seekers of new dwelling, their search over.
The leviathans took them in, whales to wandering Jonahs
As the mynahs peck at the green netting, wondering
If these would make for a nest somewhere.