Freeways And Wildlife Sanctuaries

You can hear the seagulls and the breakers slightly off to one side

While the semis jake brake and the cars whiz by the Amtrac trains on the other

They are protecting several tiny endangered plant species found only here -

In the slope up to the freeway exit behind another new Super Target

The elephant seals have begun to re-appear after being mass-slaughtered a century ago

Priuses tailgate Cadillac SUVs in unending lines through smog-enhanced sunsets

There is a green recycling bin by each one of the many public garbage cans

But, Yosemite valley is a twisty, overcrowded maze of dusty, half-lost traffic

The bread is good and there are organic fruits and vegetables readily available

Stores and houses crowd the farmland down to the tiny coastal butterfly reserves

Progressive is not an insulting word and alternative thinking abounds

The radio dial sports more Christianity than Country but less than Spanish FA-MA

They are protecting the beach nesting areas of the endangered snowy sand plover

Thirty-five million people already live here and more arrive every single day

There may still be good, un-crowded surf breaks just a short ways up the central coast

They pipe stolen water 500 miles to try and quench LA’s vast unending thirst

Chances are a freeway will take you to that remotest wilderness area

It’s all handicapped accessible and the poor earn money collecting all the recyclable litter

The gasoline pumps are fitted with vapor-trapping devices to fight the air pollution

Retirees carefully fuel their 70’ motor homes which tow monstrous SUVs

Bears roaming through the campsites are exciting nighttime entertainment

Having a flat out on an urban freeway might just cost you your life

They got commuter trains and carpool lanes and a host of ecological tax incentives

Quite often you don’t have an average speed, stalled somewhere out on The 5

The economy is hi-tech, service-oriented and among the world’s largest

Swarms of the brown people’s decrepit vehicles surround a myriad of small plots

The climate is mild along the coast, tending towards forgiving and inviting

There really is no end to the traffic but sometimes it’s a little lighter

Volunteer ‘docentes’ help to raise public awareness of the treasures to be preserved

It’s really hard to tell if they are moving ahead any faster than they fall behind

Cute little signs urge us not to dump because these drains all flow into our bay

Still, Tijuana, but 10 miles down, pours all its raw sewage into the ocean every day

These people buy more hybrid cars than any place else on earth

Their mammoth shining RVs consume power like apartments in slow motion

Every owner counts on the high six figures and above from the investment that is their home

The lucky urban poor raise children at campgrounds, fairly near to where they were born

They are protecting the fuzzy otters in the lush green kelp beds just offshore

Their organic spinach infected with migrant E. Coli sometimes finds its way into our markets

No Need To Protest Once They're Done

It’s hard for them to miss what they were too young to have ever seen

There’s just no sense in protecting anything that’s been gone so long already

Once they’ve disappeared there’s no need to fight over their extinction

Won’t have to try and save it if it was bulldozed so many years ago

There’s no point in boycotting that new Wal*Mart once the doors are open

Ain’t no way to stop this self-destructive process that we know simply and surely as progress

They aren’t going to get worked up over your old and faded pictures

It won’t matter anymore, anyway, when nobody else remembers

Once it’s been so hot for a hundred years no one alive will know any better

Just bulldoze those native artifacts and keep the work on schedule

Soon you won’t even be able to imagine how this all was before we came

They’ll say, ‘There’s no way you could have ever swam in this awful river’

No need now to preserve what’s been paved beneath this parking lot

Who cares that, over there, was where we used to keep our horses

Won’t make a bit of difference anyway, after a couple million years

No sense in arguing after all the trees are cut

Anyway, there’s still a few of them left, over at the zoo

Don’t have to file suit now since that marsh has been all drained

Forget about the bag limits, all the good fish are gone and the rest are full of poison

Why, they never even took the time to listen to all them songbirds, anyhow

No need for public hearings once it’s been graded flat and all paved over

It’s probably just always been really noisy around here, in any case

Can’t let the bears live too near our kids in their happy new backyards

It’s hard for them to try and restore what they neither created nor destroyed

Once we’ve broken ground there’s never any more objections

So, what actually was the point, in the way it was before

No way that this was ever just quiet rural farmland, in any case

When we are done, nobody will even listen to those squishy whiners

They won’t fight for things now gone, so far beyond their imaginations

Once we’re done extracting, there’s no profit whatsoever in restoration

Now that there’s this new road through here, why not add just a strip mall alongside?

After that, some cheap apartments over there won’t make any difference, anyhow

It’s gonna happen one way or another, so might as well get in on the money

They can fix up their little yards if they really need to try and make a difference

Now that it’s gone it’s just some NewAge fairytale to be dismissed with raucous, scornful laughter

No need to get offended now, it’s all been settled in accordance with our laws and tradition

Lost or merely wandering aimlessly?

After a while you start to think you probably should be getting somewhere

Signs should at least begin to appear now and again on the horizon

Maybe you might see a mileage marker or, why not even a billboard?

You’d think after all of these years some sort of outline would begin to emerge

Perhaps now that your kids are gone some of the constant turbidity will settle out at last

We might turn back but it seems like a one-way that only crosses dirt tracks leading nowhere

Though it’s starting to get real dark, I think that this may be the trail that I might still be seeing

It’s not safe to hurry but we don’t know what time things close up around here

Maybe that was the right turn off, but now it’s way too far back to turn around

Our difficulty increases because we don’t speak the language and we have no map

After a while you’d think they’d have at least an occasional road marker

I finally gave up looking for signs at every fork in the trail and stuck to my gut

It’s too hot to travel during the day and far too misleading in the night

I’m finding it difficult to transition from being lost to merely wandering aimlessly

I wondered just when I would have enough time saved that I would not have to hurry

With the passing of the years I grow anxious to spy at last a heretofore unknown goal

We kept thinking we were almost there but could not ever really tell for sure

Too late we tried in vain to remember if we’d forgotten to do this or to pay that

When it finally stopped raining, the damp wind kept us cold but did not get us dry

I think now I need to go back over the scanty evidence looking for some new clues

After a long while I learned more from my dreams than from the books that I read

Arriving tired and dirty I kind of thought I probably had already seen this latest new sight

After a short rest we prepared to push on again despite our growth of misgivings

In a cove sheltered from the wind and waves we tried to regain our bearings

Finally, one day, the old dog just laid down beside the road and could not rise again

After months we realized the differences between vacationing and traveling

Once we were utterly lost there came signs to unknown places in all directions

The road I had firmly stuck to turned into a pigtrack and at last petered out in an arroyo

The one radio station we could get was broadcasted only unintelligible grunts and whistles

Later on, the children came out in every village just to witness the white strangers

At last we simply kept on going not really knowing anything better to do

If I only had but another battery I’m sure my GPS might get us safely on our way…

There’s No Hiding From Our Own Advances

You’ll have to breathe what’s in the air to live more than about ten short minutes

You can’t avoid the dirty things smeared about as you fall towards the ground

There’s no real ignoring the poverty enjoyed by most everybody here

You’ll always have to hear the un-muffled trucks pounding by in their clumsy and ignorant glee

The jets will still be floating so far and wide above you, all so safe and clean

You must drink the water sometime, from a source that you will just have to trust

Unbidden solicitations will assault you, from all directions, at every moment

The food that you must eat to sustain you may poison you all at once, or over time

There’s no hiding from their bulldozers, earthmovers or giant noisy dump trucks

You can’t avoid the angry crowds from the swarming plague of overpopulation

This next upcoming pandemic will be an important milestone in your short time

You’ll experience the warmest years in recorded history, for the rest of your life

There will be a chance to contemplate the vehicles standing idle for lack of fuel

You can watch videos of empty factories for which they once destroyed good farmland

You will observe with amazement how quickly the skein of civilization can unravel

There’s no avoiding the filthy mud and yet there’s no way to clean your shoes

We can all learn to go to sleep dirty once again and wake up scratching and hungry

There’s no hiding from the all-pervasive propaganda of the competing cults of personality

You must endure the pounding of giant helicopter blades, far too close for comfort

His self-appointed representatives on here earth will drive His Will deep into your brain

Happiness will come much easier and center upon food, clothing and shelter

There’s no hiding from the toxic fugitive dust in any of our so-called great cities

You will be martyred in a jihad you do not understand for a promised place in some fuzzy heaven

Once the conglomerates have used you up, you will never work again

Watch as everything but military spending is pared back to next to nothing

Observe with incredulity the vast array of perverse crimes that make up the news

Don’t try to avoid every pothole or you’ll never get to where you must be going

There’s no hiding all your symptoms from the many problems you did not create