echo Petrichor
The mountains utter a depth I cannot decipher
Let alone the sea!
The muse from the wind carry a weight so light that it falls right at my chest
It’s as if the entire world is mine
Mine to experience
My skin breathing the salty scent of the ocean
As I walked away towards the forest beneath the mountain
The petrichor filled my lungs; my mind was discrete from the rest
It was just me
and
the beautiful creations on Earth
And I am constantly
stunned by its nooks and crannies
I stared at the line that cuts the blue of the ocean and the sky
The intricate shades, they blend so well
How painters must have dreamed of replicating that blend
A paradise my entire being visits
Civilization was too far
I choose to regress
Just my heartbeat and the ocean
Ticking and swaying
By: Mugilaa Selvaraja
Nature Will Take Us All
Part I: Land
Deep in the woods,
The old cottage stands.
Long-forgotten, hidden, lost,
Eaten alive by an invasion of moss.
Vines creep into rusted hinges,
Spreading across the glass windows; a spiderweb crack.
The cottage grows into foliage,
Man-made; nature-claimed.
Part II: Sky
Electric bolts crack and whip across the sky,
Releasing the never-ending tears of never-ending grief.
Rise, and drown the lands once fertile.
Break down and wash away foreign debris,
Flatten the lands and take it all down.
A clean slate, flat to the ground.
Return it to the way it once was:
Before we took over.
Part III: Sea
We took it all.
And she’s going to take it all back.
Watch your high-rise hotels fall,
Taken down in seconds,
As she sends waves of her long-repressed tears,
Claiming what was hers.
They run, and they cry to God to be spared.
But she will not spare no more.
***
We think Nature will fall at our hands. But Nature will take us before we take her.
By: Jaclyn Heng
