dry riverbed

Flooded with angled sunlight
and the nearest highway’s white noise,

the stones line the riverbed,
tumbled down by torrents that have traveled on

and left them high and dry.  Distant houses dot
the mountain base, infiltrating the wilderness

with green lawns and desert planting--
faux reproductions of a natural state.

Like those who spend a lifetime amassing,
and then do an about-face and divest,

nature is plundered and ravaged, civilized and novelized,
and then returned to a hybridized version of itself.

“Leave well enough alone,” the rocks grumble.
“Go satisfy creative juices somewhere else.

Preserve me as I was…don’t try remaking me
in your fantasy image.”  

When the next storm comes,
and it will, more of what was tamed,

will be reclaimed.  Those who sow the wind
will reap the whirlwind; they may try 

to harness the mountain,
but water always wins.

Liz McFadzean