The wires hum with iron light, a droning arc through northern air; the broken brick, the sudden bite of smoke where towers used to stare. Across the sand, the water burns where narrow straits hold breath and freight, and every turning compass learns the hollow cadence of debate. Far in the ice, a mountain gave; the silt rushed dark, the rafters fell, yet out of mud and sunken grave two living voices broke the shell. The river takes what greed began, the weather climbs the altered sun, while down below, the measuring man counts what is lost and what is won. Old banners rise in autumn wind, the borders argued in the cold, a ledger scratched, a treaty thinned, new fear poured out to match the old. Yet somewhere in the shadowed seam, between the diesel and the clay, the quiet pulse survives the scheme, and pulls its breath against the day.
