I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

16 February 2012

On Riverview Road

(just round from the High School)

The smell of sweet sap
grows stronger daily as I drive past
where council workers 
are clearing toppled trees
that came down with half the hillside
after the last big rains.

It used to be a quarry.
Boulders fell down too.
When the clear-up began,
orange earth movers crawling about
half way up the hill 
looked like matchbox toys.

Today it was all smooth.
By late afternoon
even the sap smell had gone.
Now this patch of hillside 
has no trees at all, not one. It looks as if
it will collapse even easier next time.


Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #87

7 comments:

  1. Little by little we lose beautiful places. I hope they replant for the next generations.

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  2. OMG, it is happening Everywhere! Our hillsides have been logged to death, when the rains come, the hillsides slide down into our water source - for THREE YEARS our district has had a boil water advisory. And still the clearcutting goes on. Argh.

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  3. I don't understand the need to clear away fallen trees. Never have. They do no harm and provide refuge. But people must clean, eh?

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  4. I wish I had taken photos, Pearl, and then you would understand in this case. Not only many huge trees but also a number of boulders and heaps of dirt and smaller stones landed at the bottom of a sheer, almost vertical hill. They landed on the footpath of a major road, and how they didn't end up on the road itself, or on any of the nearby buildings, is something of a miracle. It is lucky that the road was floded and impassable at the time, or someone would surely have been hurt or killed. As for shelter, the whole mess would have provided not only an obstacle but a continuing danger of further dislodgement.

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  5. oh goodness...so sad when they cut down all the trees..wondering why they do such things...

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  6. I must make it clear, they weren't cutting down trees but cutting up all the uprooted ones into manageable pieces for removal.

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  7. Yes, this is what happens when we are too tidy for our own good.

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