Progress

I walk these streets

and wonder where I am.

Places look unfamiliar:

condos,

parking garages,

office towers,

where once were

trees,

ponds,

and ducks.

If I pause quietly

in what remains,

close my eyes,

stretch my mind,

I can see again

a warm summer night

when we walked together

(by moonlight)

admired the ducks,

lay in the grass,

and shared our dreams.

Why do men feel driven

to master living things

and overwrite with

steel

brick

concrete

what nature has created?

We can speak fine words

about the march of progress,

train ourselves to admire

glass and steel,

but late at night

faint memory calls.

What we once were

returns to mind,

and we realize

what we lost out there

will always be inside,

never to die.

This is a Sunday Scribblings and Sunday Whirl post.