We strip the forest naked 

until oak drops its seedlings:

an unforgiving silence. 

Branches tremble above 

asphalt veins, pulsing

concrete swallows meadows

where songbirds once danced,

their wings clipped by the city's hum.

Glass and steel blot out the sky,

even the horizon forgets to breathe.

The last bird-builders

hammer hollow echoes.

Their swansong drums

against the empty ribs 

of bare bark.

Flitting through memory, 

lost among all we have taken,

we hang tiny houses

as scattered seeds of apology.

Waiting for a woodpecker 

to tap thin air

and stitch the sky anew.