The Language of Design

Highways, tunnels, bike paths.
North, South, East, West.
Pathways cut
quarters like arteries in my heart

And the people in the cars drive past
Drawing line
After line
After line
between our connections
Making webs of our lives,
So Thick,
we can't discern
The true spacing of the dotted line,
or how fast,
or how dangerous
we are going.

My body rolls around
above the ground
and stretched out across it

On top of the grid
that now faceless map makers left
in place of my sacred topography

Conducting industry
on my semi-permeable
membranes

a hole
a scar
a line
left
for every sprawling plain of
developed waste

And,
every mountain
every tree
every bird and bee blasted away
in the name of independent energy,

Leaves infection
leaves cracks.

And the language of design
drawn all over my pathways
and intersecting points
leaves anesthesia
leaves blindness
leaves amnesia

of how it used to be
what it means
To stop
To look
To think
To act
in our best interest

What it means
not to draw
What it means
not to carve
What it means
not to crave
What it means
not to cut