The coal swamps did not perish in one night—
They drew back slowly as a tide retreats
When Pangea locked the continents tight
And cut the middle world from ocean's feats
Of moisture-carrying: no monsoon rain
Could cross the mountain ranges looming high
To water what the drying inland plain
Had always drunk from river, lake, and sky.
Mile by patient mile the drought crept in
Where wetness once had ruled with open hand;
The swamp retreated toward the coast to win
Its last refuge and leave the middle land
To dust and stone—the great lycopsid trees
That Lycos raised like living towers wide
Could not survive the shortage: by degrees
The standing water fell, the inland tide
Withdrew, and cracking clay replaced the swamp
That Lycos built his coal-age glory on—
The rotting trunks lay in the airless damp
Of dying sediment, compressed and gone
Into the seams of coal that future hands
Would dig for fire—the great lycopsid gave
His body to the earth's enduring bands
Of carbon: every forest makes its grave
A gift for ages yet to come. But Lycos
Himself retreated to the coasts of wet
Where rainfall still could feed him, and the gross
Interior became a stone regret
Of what had been—the Coal Swamp's glorious reign
Had lasted sixty million years of green,
Had towered through the Carboniferous main
And made the richest canopy yet seen.
Now it was ending. And from every ridge
That rose above the dying swamp-line dry,
Gymnos had been watching from the bridge
Of highland, where he'd always held the high
And drier ground—the naked seed his gift,
Requiring neither puddle nor a pool
To carry forward, only wind to lift
The cone-borne seed across the country cool
And arid to whatever rocky slope
Or limestone crag would offer any root
A purchase—Gymnos had been born for hope
In dryness, born to thrive where swamp took root
Only in wetness—and the drying world
Was his inheritance at last. He called
His children and he watched their flags unfurled
Across the heights: Conifera was called
To lead the charge up every barren slope
Where naked limestone baked beneath the sun—
She raised her resinous boughs and gave the hope
Of shade and shelter where there had been none.
Her cone-scales held the seed against the dry
Wherever wind would carry it to land
On bare stone—Conifera was the pioneer
Who planted forests on the ridge's hand
And proved the gymnosperm could go anywhere
That drying drove the swamp from, fill the space
That loss had emptied with her living care—
The highland forest built on fallen grace.
Ginkga with her fan-shaped leaf of gold
Kept faith with river valleys, finding wet
Still pooled along the streambeds—she was bold
Enough to spread along the margins yet
Remaining moist, and send her seeds to float
On every current that could carry them
To any fertile bank—she wore the coat
Of adaptability's bright gem.
Cycados took the desert margin's edge
Where green met dust—armored, short, and stout,
Her trunk a cistern on each rocky ledge
Where she could store what little rain came out
Of Pangea's miserly and clouded skies—
Her cone at the crown-top bore seeds that fell
To any scrap of soil; she had no prize
Of abundance, only the stern spell
Of endurance, drawing slow from underground
What little moisture lingered—and she held
Her ground through drought until the next rain's sound.
So Gymnos watched his children take the world
That dying swamp gave up without a word—
Each slope the water left behind was pearled
With green from cone-borne seed the dry winds stirred
Into each empty height. The naked seed
Meant freedom from the standing water's law:
The gymnosperm obeyed no ancient creed
Of needing pools, and in the dry world's maw
He found not death but kingdom—every hill
That swamp abandoned was a new frontier
For those who carried water in the will
Of seed itself: the dry lands held no fear
For Gymnos and his children. They had known
The high dry ground for ages, waiting out
The swamp's dominion—now that it had grown
Too arid for the swamp, the ridges shout
With gymnosperm abundance—resin, cone,
And needle-leaf against the sun's hard face.
Honor the ones who made the bare stone home
And planted life in the departing's place.