Breathe in.
Your crown of precious hues
Glimmers in the setting sun;
A steadfast declaration that
Your appearance will not be
Ordained by the passing of time.
Breathe out.
Sunbeams dance mischievously
Across your jaded fingers,
Casting reverse shadows
That shimmer invisibly
Across a living canopy.
Breathe in.
Every mouthful an aftertaste
Of chimneys, jet engines,
And manufactured concrete;
Our dirty plates licked clean
By the apathy of your appetite.
Breathe out.
Dry evergreen forests along the eastern ghats at Midhilapuri VUDA Colony, Madhurawada, Visakhapatnam (Image Credit: Adityamadhav83, via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0]).This poem is inspired by recent research, which has shown how the seasonality of photosynthesis can be tracked from space by the fluorescent ‘glow’ of a