Category Archives: water

Concrete Screams – #poem #poetry #nature #ProtectNature

Concrete Screams

Data havens spawn through forests

multiplying into cities

devouring homes and family farms

The concrete warehouses wreck the air

with their discordant screams

that sing

the rivers dry

Image description – a photo of part of a forest that has been destroyed in preparation for a building project that will overtake land once filled by old trees and streams. A piece of destruction equipment sits behind a path in a wooded area that has been cleared of trees.

At the moment, nowhere feels safe from the imminent threat of data centers and overdevelopment. Beautiful, old trees and creeks and streams are being destroyed at an alarming rate to make way for things corporate overlords are trying to convince us that we need. City and county planners know that people don’t want these monstrosities but somehow, approval gets pushed through. Money has a lot to do with that process, I’m sure.

Money and greed play a large role in overdevelopment of land without proper infrastructure to withstand all the new homes and businesses. The money, though, is something most of us will never see. We work and pay taxes, and yet, those in political power seem determined to keep the majority of the money paid into the system for themselves. They toss the majority of us mere scraps and tell us to work harder, blaming us for their hoarding of resources that should have been shared. Sharing money was the original agreement, the promise, after all.

Taxes were meant to be shared for things that benefit us all. Data centers are the personification of greed and hoarding behavior. The centers collect our personal data, to be utilized in ways that maximize profits for the corporate overlords. The centers drink massive amounts of water and drain the power grid, offering us common people nothing in return, and yet, the hideous warehouses are multiplying everywhere, because the uber wealthy benefit from these monstrosities.

The monoliths that seek to box people into a perimeter of ever-dwindling opportunity must fall to make way for a system that benefits the land and allows people to thrive instead of living under the constant threat of manufactured scarcity.

The Return #poetry #naturepoem #poems

The Return

The highway finds me broken

and broken free from the mountain’s grip

bleeding from a fight with the clinging trees

Distance restarts my heart

Each mile is another beat

At the edge of the ocean

my breath and my dreams

return to me

Life in a Bottle #poems #poetry #nature #earthday

Life in a Bottle

Plastic bottles inhale

breath from the river

Corporations sell

life

and take it

without regret

Image description – A photograph of a narrow, winding section of the James River surrounded by trees on a sunny, spring afternoon

About the poem – Corporations have been given the rights (for the right price, paid to hungry politicians) to bottle up water from waterbodies that people depend on, both in the United States and in other countries. These soulless corporations then sell the bottled water to the people whose streams and rivers the corporations have claimed. There are so many short-term profit tactics that involve destroying water and land for temporary gain. Politicians who allow the land to be polluted and destroyed are often working under the assumption that the aftereffects won’t catch up to them in their lifetime. They assume that they will always live in the protected, fortunate areas where such things don’t occur.

The earth can’t protect itself from shareholders and CEOs or from smiling lawmakers bent on getting kickbacks for passing along environmental destruction laws, all so they can send their kids to the good schools and have summer homes by the river (in the sections the corporations can’t touch, of course), so we have to respect and protect the earth.

Earth Day is a chance to remember and appreciate all the beautiful parks and natural landmarks, but it’s also a reminder that we need to be active in the fight to preserve them.