“Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?”
Allen Ginsberg, “America”
I came all the way out here, and now you’re burning. Flypaper
freeways twist and curl, vibrating with trucks and cars,
creeping down the off-ramps like mourners at a funeral.
You uprooted all the native species, replaced them
with these blighted palm trees, your knobby-kneed
brown hills heaving with quakes. You used to be
so beautiful. Now everything’s a housing tract,
old eucalyptus and lemon groves fallen long ago.
No more life in the tide pools. California,
the tents of the homeless line every street.
Once you were a bride draped with garlands
of orange blossoms, bouquets of white egrets.
How long will the redwoods send out new shoots,
the ocean and the open sky air their lacy lingerie?
Tell me, where else is there to go, now
that we have used up this whole Earth?
This poem first appeared in MacQueen’s Quinterly.
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Robbi Nester is a retired college educator and author of four books of poetry as well as editor of three anthologies. She hosts and curates two monthly poetry reading series, Verse Virtual Poetry and Open Mic, and Words With You. Learn more at her website, http://www.robbinester.net.
