Former forest 

steeped in fog  

takes one last breath 

before the concrete smothers 

hidden roots and hearts 

lungs and streams 

For the moment, the river and sky 

sleep 

Underground dreams    

travel

After a few years

nightmares of metal-mouthed equipment subside, 

and the birds wake the seeds

Above and below

Indestructible roots and limbs strangle

billionaires’ dreams

Today I looked at the news again (instead of hiding inside a heavily warded blanket fort of ignorance) and damn, the giant rock we live on just continues to roll downhill towards a pit full of scorpions, broken glass, credit scores, and other such miseries. Despite having an ample number of empty houses in existence and the means to grow the food supply in relatively safe ways, those who believe themselves to be the unequivocal authorities over all that they see have chosen to hold everything behind a paywall. The lock only turns for those within the groups that don’t really need anything but want more than they can ever reasonably use.

Unlike the hopeful vision of the future proposed in Star Trek, the current reality is that technological advancements and their capabilities will not be used to benefit you or me. Cities have begun mounting a i cameras on the back of trash trucks, not with the intent to keep the drivers safe, but instead, to search for code violations in homes in areas where people have limited ability to pay useless fines. Municipality revenue-generating cameras on trash trucks was not the story I wanted to read today. Or tomorrow. Or ever, really. But if I choose to stay awake and aware, then I have to hear some absurdity or another, every single day. The price of knowing these things is anger that burns, constantly, to some degree, in every facet of my being.

I just wanted to go outside and enjoy the parks and beaches, and to be left alone and enjoy my privacy. But the forests are all being torn down to make way for ugly gray warehouses that drink all the water and breathe smoke into our air. Data center parks and data center villages replaced all the trees, but “no worries,” we’re told, we can still look up digital images of forests. A sacrifice for the greater good. I can’t figure out what’s great about it, though.

Robot eyes in the skies assist our phones in spying on our words and purchases. Companies line up to pay for the consumer data, because we’re just numbers with wallets to be exploited, and that’s not even the worst use of our information. The electronic spies report our habits to programs designed to fleece the people bare before the billionaires create their dream of an everlasting winter, leaving us no option but to trade years of our futures for the chance to survive the manufactured cold for a little while longer.