Velvet Defiance

Emerald furrows in the city's gray palm, where the rain gathers its small debts. A soft architecture of spores anchoring the sidewalk to the old world.

It does not ask for the sun's full attention, content with the shadow of a parked car and the slow seepage of mineral tea steeped from the grit of forgotten stone.

Under the rush of heavy leather soles, it remains a velvet defiance, holding the moisture of a billion mornings against the heat of the summer's dry throat.

Green tide in a concrete harbor, witness to the cracking of the man-made, patiently waiting for the day the garden finally wins its silence back.