We walk on borrowed ground,
measuring our days in square inches
and fiberglass window screens, forgetting that time—
real time—moves in the unleashing of lava flows,
in the slow polish of river stone.

We may call this progress as we pave
over ancient burial sites,
the already-fractured arteries of Earth’s surface,
preparing it for non-recyclable machines
that burn the same fuel meant to shape suns—
and we call this freedom.

Yet somewhere, under all the noise
and distraction, the old planet—
the one we never knew, the one with animals
and forests we will never see—
hums her patient song,
and the question rises again—
not from despair,
but from a love so vast it aches:
How did we forget
we belong to what we’re breaking?

Walkies under a full moon ~ bj 2025