Rising from the Ruins
by Dawg
Amid toppled gravestones where yesterday’s burdens rot,
regrets crumble in damp earth–each one named and forgot.
No wailing wind will resurrect their mournful dirge,
yet beneath the ruin, a subtler urge
coaxes a stubborn green from all that was lost–
hope finding foothold, no matter the cost.
Failures lie fetid, their bitterness spent,
yet from their decay, new strength is unbent.
Among monuments carved by sorrow and shame,
old sins weather down, surrendering their claim.
Roots twist through the cracks of each stone’s confession,
drawing sustenance from every fallen obsession.
Ghosts gather at dusk, their whispers heavy with blame,
but dawn brings a shimmer that none can tame.
Dreams–once buried beneath defeat’s debris–
push through the soil, fierce and unruly, hungry to be free.
Shadows stretch long across plots of remorse,
yet in their darkness, resolve charts a course.
Every lost hope, every mistake once feared,
becomes compost for the courage that’s neared.
The past is not kind, but it isn’t the end–
just the compost for futures that bend
toward possibility, toward hunger, toward bloom–
sprouting bright shoots from the heart of the gloom.
In the ruined garden of memory’s domain,
what withers and falls is never in vain.
Every grave is a cradle, every tear feeds the root,
of resilience and hope in perpetual pursuit.
There’s no crown for the haunted, no scepter for regret–
only growth from what’s dead, and the will not to forget.
Where tombstones mark failures, life’s cycle resumes–
rising from ruins, something fearless blooms.