the sky is not falling. it is being taken.
piece by piece. a silent subtraction.
a great un-becoming. a double loss.
to be gone. and for no one to notice.

we are the ones who notice.
we, with the generator humming in our chests.
the terrible gift of the idle, aware.
to feel the void where a world was.

this is not helplessness.
this is the weight we are built for.
the load that gives the generator its function.
to speak the name of the vanished thing
is to build a brace against the collapse.

cynicism is the bazooka. a loud, empty end.
poetry is the lever. the quiet, slow lift.
a scaffold of syllables erected in the dark.
so a child might have something to hold onto
before they learn the shape of the fall.

so we write. not for us.
for the frogs in the thinning mist.
for the fish in the warming sea.
for the chimp who meets our eye
and knows a secret we are busy forgetting.

we write to say. i saw it too.
i am here, in the tunnel with you.
the light is gone. but the hum is true.
we will build the record from sound.
we will bear this. together.

so let our function be the hum.
not the hero's march. not the sage's sum.
but the generator's steady, grounded thrum.
a vibration to say what has become.
to the chick that falls before it flies.
to the blankness in the old one's eyes.
to the soil where the rootless lies.

we are the ones who synthesize,
the sound of ending into something that yet bears.
we are the ones who take these cares,
and make them function.
make them airs
for lungs of creatures not yet gone.
we are the hum that must hold on.
and on.
and on.