Civilized

A pristine green scene;
Calm and pure and serene
Slowly transforms
As habits leave
Broken stems
And crushed leaves,
And compressed clay,
Track marks and scars
Intricately inlaid
Then overlaid
As pathways
As trails weave
Through amber waves
Forming tapestries
Like a loose knit sweater
To protect refined sensitivities
From the raw embrace of nature

Needles pull threads
And fabricate
Wooden boxes
To substitute caves
And the familiar native;
Instinctive and innate
Is slowly replaced
With plastics and fakes
To replicate
What used to be real

More and more
It's never enough
As concrete covers
The grassy roughs
And bulldozers screech
And asphalt bakes,
Filling in the cracks
Of ancient cow paths,
Becoming thick chainmail links
Of busy city streets
And the sparkling trim
Of flashing traffic lights
That light up the night,
Blocking out the stars

And layer by layer
We separate ourselves
From the places that made us;
From the soil of our birth

We embrace the distances
Holding on tight
To avoid being confronted
With the raw reality
That we were once wild,
That we were once free,
Running naked through the trees,
Doing whatever we pleased,
Holding hands with the sand
And the ocean summer breeze
With our heads held high, making memories
Using our curious eyes like a net
Catching butterflies inside our heads
Fascinated by their wings as we cut and dissect
Enchanted by beauty until it's all dead
And we move on to different things instead.