Paradise Mowed

How the land was mowed and razed:

The heart could not take it any longer ---
The blooms fading, the butterflies
Meandering on,
The plants growing tall and thin and pale,
The machines grinding
Cut them to stumps as
Days grew shorter, the sun lower,
The mess was to be landscaped, trimmed
Of excess never to seed.
Perhaps it wanted that in its fatal attempt
At mortality, and continuity.
Perhaps to be green was enough, then yellow,
Then a straw brown
Underfoot and easily trampled.
The heart was tired of trying to
Embody every color only to watch
It fade.
It wanted to bleed the songs of the
Bees and butterflies, dying
Surely as them,
Their vibrancy a memory.
How the memories hung in the air
Over the remains;
The machines singing metal clanging
In harmony.
And the heart was still, the machine-heart.
Its beating war a drone, a din.
I heard it, and I heard the plant-souls
Thanking it even as they were robbed
Of their final days of life.
They saw the machines as a sign,
A destiny to embrace ---
In those final moments they
Dreamed of next year
And it was pure ecstasy.