Moon at Half Past Noon

Did I cradle the night in my boughs so deep,
Where stars pierced the dark with a silver gleam,
Owls sang soft to the wind’s gentle sweep,
And fireflies danced in a waking dream?
Then came the rumble, a tremor’s cruel stream,
Their hulks of steel loomed through mist’s embrace,
Did I quake as their lights tore my seam,
A march of doom on my sacred space?

I cling to the roots beneath the moon’s pale glow,
When the surf of steel washes my stillness away,
Do I live, or am I dying, or already laid low,
As the sap bleeds out in the shuddering fray?
Their iron jaws roar, the beasts of the night,
Did I hear their growl drown my whispering leaves,
The chaos they carve in their merciless flight,
On trails where my shadows once wove reprieves?

Theirs are names I cannot speak—cold and vast,
Bulldozers, they call them, with teeth that bite deep,
Excavators clawing through midnight’s cast,
Fifty strong, they came while the stars did sleep.
Was it the witching hour, or just past the dusk,
When their blades sang ruin, a dirge without end?
Posts whisper of seven morn, yet night was my husk,
When chainsaws screamed, and my boughs did bend.

Do I dream of the deer that fled their glare,
Or the peacock’s cry as the dark turned red?
The sparrows took wing, no perch to share,
While I trembled beneath a sky that bled.
Did I feel the churn of their tracks at three,
Or four, when the silence shattered apart?
The swarm of their engines, a drunken decree,
Trampled my heart with each thudding start.

Does it matter the hour their hunger awoke,
When sap dried crisp and my roots tore free?
The chatter of men, their mirthful smoke,
Crushed my prayer in a silent plea.
Yet, do I breathe, a remnant spared,
Beneath the court’s frail, fleeting stay?
Rise and crash, their surge ensnared,
Still, I whisper—will I fade or sway?