Where the Wild’s Hold Their Last Breath (A Poem)

Author’s note: I wrote this while standing on the edge of a wildlife refuge, as thoughts of its significance poured in.

Here, where the refuge ends, the world begins, A borderland of quiet, breathing wilds, Encircled by the hum of distant lights— Their flickering like stars long since unmoored, Unnatural constellations in the haze.

The field is bruised by twilight’s weary hand,

Its grasses bow to winds that whisper loss, And tangled branches claw against the night, Defiant still, though hemmed by closing dark. This patch of life, a shard of what once was, Now crouches, cornered, by a rising tide.

Beyond, the distant hum of factories churns, A ceaseless hymn to mankind’s hungering will, That rends the earth, consuming sky and stone, And reaches even here, to mark the air. Its pall of smoke lies heavy on the stars, The Mordor of our making, crowned with ash.

The lights are many, scattered, cold, and sharp— An empire stitched with glass and burning wires, That spreads like ivy choking ancient trees. This darkness isn’t absence but a weight, An artifact of hands that crave and take, Until the night itself is bent to serve.

And yet, the refuge stands. This stubborn soil, This dim-lit stretch of field and tangled brush, Holds something still untouched, though barely so. The wild breathes, though every breath is thin, A whisper drowned by cities’ ceaseless roar. Here, at the edge, I listen to its voice, And mourn the world it fights, yet cannot heal