Concrete Hunger

Concrete Hunger

Concrete hunger
never full
takes the wild
leaves it dull

They paved the creek
where foxes ran
bulldozed nests
for a parking plan

Stripped the trees
called it “new growth”
drove steel through lungs
that fed us both

Skyscrapers spread
like a rising tide
while deer get crushed
on the county side

The asphalt warms
where roots once cooled
now shadows creep
behind the school

A fox in trash
a hawk in wires
coyote howls
behind barbed tires

We call it blight
we call it “stray”
but they were here
before our way

No treaty signed
no battle won
just lights that burn out
every sun

We didn’t fight
we just erased
now nature rots
in real estate

We choke the green
then wonder why
the forest dies
behind our sky

Just count the cracks
and what they cost
every beam’s a kingdom lost

And when the last wild sound is gone
we built a tomb
to stand upon