At the Seed Vault Door

The mountain keeps its grammar under ice, a cold alphabet of barley, rye, blue corn. At the steel door, the wind unbuttons itself and lays its silver nerves across the snow.

Inside, sleep is cataloged in paper envelopes, each kernel a clenched lantern, each husk a small boat holding the taste of rain from vanished fields.

Far south, orchards blister in their own perfume, rivers rehearse the shapes of absence, and tractors idle like tired animals beside furrows too bright with salt.

Still here, beneath the patient rock, the future waits in millions of quiet mouths. If we return worthy of spring, they will open one green syllable at a time.