One day (a poem)

Alex Tran
2 min readMay 4, 2020

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One day

the world as we know it will change

infrastructure, buildings, bridges, and highways will collapse

folding themselves on one another until they disappear.

.

No more high-rises, skyscrapers, or the tallest tower of the world award

no more cars, buses, or trains, airways or railroads

people will once again travel on foot

let the dirt marks on our heels tell stories about the places we’ve been to.

.

We will build our own tents

from branches, and leaves,

light a fire outside

and call it ‘home sweet home’.

.

No more shopping malls or FedEx delivery for e-commerce

when we desire to burn money on another designers’ handbag,

we’ll instead go to the riverbank

collect funny looking rocks that were shattered from a lost star exploding millions of years ago

we’ll treasure the beauty we find in nature

containing their own spirits,

and not mass-produced in factories.

.

There will be no more supermarket

Costco, Walmart, Whole Foods Market become ancient history

we find whole foods in our backyard

next to our tent, on our acres of land

birds from far away land send us the seeds

which grow into vegetables, herbs, and fruits under our care

we won’t have tomatoes or asparagus all year round

now that we learn that everything comes with the season,

and so does food.

.

We will no longer eat chicken that comes from the foam tray wrapped in plastic

we catch them in the yard and kill them with our bare hand

‘Thanks for giving your life to us’, we pray, ‘May we be blessed with healthy eggs,

that hatch into chickens, that lay the eggs”.

.

Once in a full moon,

with arrows and bows, the men set on the way

jump on their horses and head to the forest

hope that they will come home with rabbits, birds, and hogs,

to feed the village a feast, and preserve some before the winter comes

the women will stay home, tend for the homes, the crops, the dogs

and other family’s kids that they treat like their own

they tell folk stories, drum, and sing, and dance

next to the fire, with their shadow on their land.

.

In the world of ‘today’, aren’t we all rotting inside

craving for the something we miss, but what exactly is it?

the fresh air, the grounded earth, the space to run and to be free

to call the nature our own

before us too, one day, will collapse

folding ourselves on one another until

we disappear.

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