Withering Strands - Be'lakor

Far from the Sun

And that frantic dash

Billions before it

To Earth, had crashed

But in this expanse

Where huge trees unraveled

A new plant was struggling

Where light seldom traveled

This small searching stem

Glimpsed dawn upon dawn

Dwarfed by gnarled limbs

From the day it was born

Hope given over

To all that is brief

Amidst the detritus

Dead leaf upon leaf

As its withering strands

Arched back towards earth

Above it, a movement —

A death to bring birth

Rays filtered, then poured

As a forefather fell

With the passing of giants

The stem could now tell

That life would come quickly

And it did, as it gorged

Transformed by the day

As the fueling light forged

Fixated above

The sky its sole purpose

Its oblivious growth

Led the insects to surface

And small though they were

En masse, they had come

To gnaw at its base

As it reached for the Sun