Remnants

We waited.  We waited for what seemed like forever.  We waited until our toes became roots, and we cried with our arms outstretched to the sky, but nothing answered.  Our fingers grew and became branches, which in turn grew leaves.  Our skin became rough, textured, and our bodies hardened.  But still they didn't come.

Summers passed, winters too, and others came.  The others were nice, they mean, they were dark, they were light.  They took away some of us.  The others planted more, that grew from pebbles.  The others put in benches, took out benches, walked among us and left pieces of themselves around us.  But the others weren't the ones we were waiting for.

The others left, too.  They died, and ran away, and sometimes they just disappeared.  They left a bench, and a light.  It's in the midst of us, and still comes on every night even though no one has needed it for several summers.  The wind pushes our leaves and the pieces of the others around the path that they made sometimes.  The rain will come soon, and the pieces will be washed away again.  But the ones we waited for haven't come yet.

Our hearts have slowed, and only beat once a century.  We used to beat as one.  But now only one heart beats every hundred years, still waiting for the promise made eons ago by dust.

I cry, my branches stretched out and up towards the sky.  But nothing answers.