ENVIRONMENTAL Poem: CIVIL ENGINEERING DILEMMA, by Andrew Kelly

Abstract:

There is a smokestack
and I am two herons
gliding across the bay
that it looks over.

Under the stack’s
power plant torso,
there is a mine
that makes gold.
I shave down coal
to smudgy bits of ore,
until ash runs up my wings.

Introduction:

This is a constant thing—
Plumes from the stack
swallow up
heron mating calls
and spit birds back
as baby angels
as green comets rain down
on all the dinosaurs.

Methods:

The night before the herons—
I call it life support. Gangly wires.
traffic cones on our fists. Pretend shooting.

The buzzing drone of the parking garage
funnels drifters out to color inside the lines.

You wave down a yellow cab. We pass things
as we search for a place to watch stars.

The bank? No. The quarry? No.
How about the mall? There’s a better place.

And the highway becomes a ballad
threading through an album of tunnels.

Results:

A hubcap by the guardrail
has crushed a heron and a porcupine,

so now just guts and feathers and needles
lay where life once tried
to cross the street.

A loose ladder on the stack
as we climb halfway to the top.

A concrete awning with a fence and graffiti
to look upon the skyline.

But there is only smog.
Smog and the distant clanks
of machinery that would make
the hair on the back of a hill’s neck
stand up straight.

Discussion:

We make our money
to pay for construction
and watch birds
choke on the bay.

Appendix:

Us on the concrete
awning with a fence
and graffiti.

I can’t see any of the stars
that I should be able to see.

But the worst part about the city
is how wonderful it looks
when it’s posted up behind you.