I know, I know.
You’ll tell me I’m being ridiculous.

That infinite growth is the future.
That parch is the new green.

But I’ve been there, you see. Just last night!
Only a few decades and a few dozen miles

from your breakfast nook. (Maybe less).
It’s closer than you can imagine,

you, with your eyes focused hard on the market,
watching Greed parade cloaked by inevitability.

Sipping something strong to swallow
while you overlook construction

plans designed to transform lushness
to deserts of vast technology.

Last night I dreamed of a house,
so like the one you (and I) live in.

On the kitchen counter (so like yours! And mine!)
a barred owl paced. She was waiting for me.

She took my dream-spirit under her wing,
flew me over your deep hedge.

The moonlit air was thick, brown-hazed
with dusty inevitabilities.

In a soft bed (so like yours), I woke, coughing,
just minutes before dawn.

Outside my window, an owl demanded,
again and again:

Who-cooks-for-you?
Who-cooks-for you?

*the line “deserts of vast technology” was borrowed from Wendell Berry’s 1977 book “The Unsettling of America Culture & Agriculture.”