Progress
It happened quickly enough,
the earth movers came
and scraped the land clean
knocking down the grove of trees
that provided a windbreak
for the little house, then the little house
was laid flat, its floor boards
and door jambs hauled away,
backhoes dug down into the soil,
that good dark loam, to sink steel beams,
graders widened the road to three lanes
with room for a fourth,
someday.
And just like that,
Starbucks and Red Lobster,
Great Clips and Home Depot
so close we don’t really need to drive.
We didn’t know what we’d been missing.
We didn’t know to hate our lives.
13 thoughts on "Progress"
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“We didn’t know to hate our lives” you really highlight the sense of disconnection that comes with more loss of our natural world with that line. AWESOME
I agree with jst. I felt my years working for Right of Way all up until that final couplet. All the reasons I had to get out of that job. But that final couplet, man. Damn. And that penultimate final one. Straight turn and sucker punch. Felt this.
love the specificity of “floor boards” and “door jambs”
The story of our age, sadly. Thanks for summing it up.
Agree with the sentiment here. So sad…but well done!
I wish I’d written this poem. So good to see you, Bill!
You, too, Linda! Congrats on the new collection. Remind me how to get a copy.
You title and last line sum it all up! Great specific details throughout.
Wow – great ending to a poem of unfortunate reality. (And even if you don’t need a car, you likely can’t walk because there are no sidewalks and the traffic level is lethal.)
Good stuff. I can feel the bitter irony in the last few lines.
I love that the windbreak was the first to go. Destruction is so quick.
The irony of this poem is the title, “Progress.” Clearly, you don’t see the little house’s destruction this little home as progress. So you take us through the intricate details of its razing. By the time the house is down, I mourn its passing as much as you apparently do. Good job.
So good! Perfect title. Perfect ending. Timely and devastating.