For Our Lost Country

I remember mornings

when sunlight spilled over dirt roads,

when possibility filled every conversation,

and voices carried trust, not suspicion.

💧

I mourn the slow decline

of civility, of hope present in daily life,

homes where laughter used to linger

now filled with tension and fear.

I mourn rivers we allowed them to choke,

landscapes scarred by neglect,

histories fading beneath our indifference.

💧

I mourn how we used to listen,

how dialogue-built friendships,

how neighbors met each other with recognition

and respect.

Now we speak in different languages and fury,

truth thinning like paper in a storm.

💧

I mourn not only what has vanished,

but what will be demanded in years ahead.

Our children inherit debts,

promises abandoned, burdens

imprinted on soil, sky, and law.

I grieve for ambition

that bends only to power,

and for voices silenced beneath its roar.

💧

Yet signs of strength remain:

those who refuse to surrender,

who plant gardens in broken paths,

who raise their voices against injustice,

who insist possibility still exists.

Even amid absence, even amid ruin,

something persists,

a memory of what might be restored,

a spark capable of becoming fire.

💧

I mourn with awareness,

holding both loss and hope

like fragile dreams,

shattered yet luminous,

waiting to catch sun once more.