**inspired by my imaginings of what life might be like many years after a dystopia (and by watching Independent Lens and POV, and reading The Other Side of the Island too many times). I apologize in advance for any go-green sentiments or other cheesiness... (cringe)**

my dear little sisters,
little brothers,
little babes.
before you were born, I had a dream
of someday.

when the cities have all fallen,
and the wars are done and torn away
when the sidewalk cracks grow and expand
and there is no one to repave.
when the offices, now ruins
and the old neighborhoods in disarray
become a new sort of forest
where children come to stay.

the ivy scales the brick walls,
climbs the fences made of chains,
twirls up the rotting telephone poles
and from upon dead wires, waves.
the trees, unhindered, rise
over cracked avenues, arch their boughs
behind abandoned houses
they make new shelters now.

no more are there boundaries
decided by money and men
no more are the creatures
kept within their tiny pens.
Out of cracks, out of forgotten dirt
out of tril and negelct
springs a garden to heal brokenness,
and embrace you as a friend.

Ravaged, roofless cathedral
with stained glass shattered like tears on its floor;
goldrenrod springs up near the altar,
and a willow weeps where once was a door.
Truckbeds left rusting since some long-ago year
and cars with half the parts stripped or lost
filled up with trash that turned into dirt
onto which, by the wind, seeds were tossed.

all that is left behind,
left over, left alone
will reach up to touch the sky,
it will flourish, it will grow!
and the nature of children is to make use of what they have
and the nature of humans is to overcome the bad
and the nature of nature is to be where soil is
and the nature of people is to find a way to live.

my dear little sisters,
little brothers,
little babes
here is the only gift I can offer you:
the hope of a someday.