They paved the rivers so trucks could arrive on time. They shaved the hills until they all looked alike. The wind used to carry the scent of rain — now it smells like solvents and burnt fields. They call it progress when the forest is missing, growth when the soil can’t hold a seed. Billboards smile over the skeleton of a meadow. The sky turns a deeper shade of warning each summer. ha ha ha ha ha You can still hear the ground breathing under the asphalt, but it’s shallow, and it’s tired. One day, when the harvest is dust and the water is sold in glass bottles, we’ll remember what it was like when the Earth was untamed.
