Paving Roads

Asleep as the shadow of a night birds wings

Pass over me in my dreams,

Conveying an image to me:

Roads cracked by the growth

Of pods and seeds and such,

That were there long before the pavement,

And have now fought to retake their land—

A raging series of battles that lasts

For as long as pavement makers and their opponent exist. 

Humans come and come again

To resurface and repave and rebuild

Over the territory of the wild.  The wind,

And the rain, and the cold, and the heat

Of the glaring noonday summer sun

Hammer away at the pavement. 

The elements win their battle when civilization forgets

Or abandons

Built up areas to move on to conquer other things

And then don’t bother to take notice—until

The land is needed again. Vines and trees

And such pop up to reclaim what they can when they can.

Then,

The road is paved again, for us to travel past buildings

To go from one manicured park to the other,

To smell the fresh scent of Nature

In what humans only Believe to be is Nature’s finest.

I wonder just what are we repaving, building, and covering

Over as I wake up to the sound of a jack hammer disturbing

My sleep.

But ah!

I have lost my dream, and with it, the night birds!

There is just something about Mother Nature

(Even in dreams)

That doesn’t love civilization.