Heaven, Raise the Mountains Up
July 05th, 2020 by G.
On the 29th of June
a foreman of my own people,
men at work of my own people,
and the great machines we built,
knocked down the pines
not for timbers
not for hearths
but for being in the way
They pushed the soil tumbling
down the slope,
leveling,
the pale dirt and stones
from far underneath
not meant to be seen
now spilling broken out and pushed
then compacted
Coming Soon! Your Dollar Store!
For consumption was
the consumption wrought
Is there no end to debt
and spending and
obesity?
Heaven, raise the mountains up
and make the valleys low
again
E.C.
July 5, 2020
Yea these many years ago,
They drained the reservoir
Leveled the lofty swinging trees
And the old milk barns
And the gopher-riddled pasture
to a hot, dry, barren
asphalt field
where once grew flowers
My grandmother’s house,
Torn open by a wrecking ball
For some small profit after
She, exhausted by their importuning
Gave in.
Neon signs blinking:
Walmart
Sportsman’s Warehouse
More stores
Coming Soon!
The rough log cabin which
My father’s father’s father built
With his own hands
One pioneer summer
Gone, in an instant.
This is progress? We build on
Faulty foundations now
Forgetting our past,
Mortgaging our future
For momentary pleasure,
For ease, for convenience.
“Remember,” the prophets adjure
But we do not.
We forget, and drown in our forgetting.
Joni Mitchell
July 6, 2020
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
Put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot