Let us rise once more as saplings sprouted from gravel,
by the highways where the mufflers of the buses threaten
to blow us all

away, and sprout none
the lesser and watch for
maya: who may take our seeds and spread them and we

by them survive, strangled as we are by breath, exhaust and
white smoke: teach them with our dying leaves their names,
and let them mouth

it on their tongues, discoloured as they might be by
their birth, and see
and hear once more

the cars’ horned blare
and the tired cackle of gravel,
and the whistles of the trains rushing to: up, forth and

away, farther farther farther farther from the cracks where
they must have heard it, and with that sound pick themselves up
and give chase

to that sound that too
is theirs, but fading
away from where they too were born, and begin to begin again.