Testing Nature

 

We live in awe of the wonders of nature

irresistibly attracted to mountains, forests

and oceans the draw visceral and alluring.

Quite different from Indigenous peoples

whose undeveloped national landscapes trap

them in poverty under the cone of an active

volcano terracing its arable slopes unable to

escape in a timely manner when it awakens

and those living in impoverished little villages

seaside to eke their livings on the sea, victims

of inevitable violent storms, and forest dwellers

whose permeable huts offer no protection from

malaria-carrying mosquitoes. No Third-World

countries ours, where despite environmental

assessments licenses to build are available by

town councils filing away feasibility studies and

tax revenues where nature has her own agendas

in store of drought and wildfires leading to mass

evacuations. And what of vital wetlands whose

presence absorbs surging oceans yet infill allows

building permits where domestic and commercial

towers' construction integrity is destabilized by

inrushing tides to collapse, and homes built on

unstable Leda clay inundated by spring floods

dissolving and slumping taking with them forests 

and homes alike, sliding, splitting asunder as 

dreams quickly scatter and the ideal suddenly 

transforms to existential threats; nature rules.