I remember a valley here,
a running brook winding between saplings, 
their branches waving in the breeze with abandon.

Trucks hurry, not to build homes
in that pristine place, but to desecrate its purity.—

In the far-off yonder when seekers dig 
into that giant, man-made hill, they’ll discover
what we valued most about our living.                   

Old hair spray cans not quite robbed of gas, soaked and soiled 
baby diapers, worn out cabbage, leeks and tomatoes,
a torn flag, wadded and dirty in amongst moldy bread,
a dead dog or two, shoes, cast off over-sized
jeans, dead tree branches, broken crockery, 
television sets, computers out of date, printers
out of ink, tons of cardboard boxes filled
with plastic toys, whatever owners deemed unworthy

Amongst all this, at growing darkness,
a blue flame erupts from a pipe 
buried deep inside this mound of human waste
to burn the gas it generates.

Every day, every day, building a mountain,
load upon load, trucks trudge a hundred trails up the sides 
of that ever-burgeoning malformation.

-Betty Personette