This must have been a forest once.
Past the turning where a container truck is parked.
Past the mud and rubble on this filthy track
Must have been green, generous, bursting with life, busy bird calls.
Far overhead birds wheel in a V
as they must have, long ago.
About here- sunlight didn’t filter to the ground
Just the touch of the breeze on hushed green.
Perhaps there would have been a path here, deer doe-eyed, or a leopard or a cheetah sunning,
Where the factory now stands.
Next to the BPO. International calls, speaking as Miss Jones.
A well worn path, to the distant cave monastery, the only intrusion, mostly uphill, meandering.
Past the Aviation training academy, where the girls in short red make their way gingerly in the muck
But I’m sure this must have been a forest once.
Tall proud trees reaching for the sky, the whisper of the breeze like secrets.
And this place where a tea stall huddles with cheap meals for factory shift workers
Must’ve been a clearing for the world weary to rest. Or ponder journeys.
The years leave their mark, they say.
I wonder.