children who have been here forever

I sat on sacred land yesterday and then realized that

I am always on sacred land

Shopping carts and garbage litter the homes around me
Children laugh, and I smile at their teeth
Shining like stars against a Sepia backdrop of flesh

Sometimes in the glint of those very teeth
I see the ghost of what this neighborhood used to be

This graveyard of closed-down banks and broken windows
Seems like the only thing still shining is the children, so I follow them
Creep into shadows, see they’re still shining
This Sepia rivaled only by an Indigo sky

I want to paint them but I can’t capture such light
What I want to show is the flash
A captive firefly in the eyes of children who have been here forever

There are no words
There are no colours
I can only watch