Grow, grow, growing grow
Taller, wider, deeper, steeper
Topsoil cracking
Foundations creaking
Interstitial water leaking
Gases pluming
Sun too hot
Birds forgetting how to fly
Flies all set to multiply
Central heating turned up high
Fish recumbent on the sands
Hail brave campaigning elephants
Who rampage through
the concrete jungle
eviscerating 4WDs
with tusks awry
trunks outstretched
eyes akimbo
Vanguard of a worldwide army
of feather scale and bone
all stitched up
By might is right
into a threadbare tapestry of deprivation
Today we spread, we glow, we grow
In rampaging delight we gag
on feather, bone and scale
We suffocate ourselves
Tomorrow
The earth will fry
And so might I
Is this the way to end our poem
© Diana Korchien 2012
This poem was printed in the 2012 Poetry Trail Anthology from Paekakariki Press. The Poetry Trail, where local estate agents displayed poems alongside properties to sell or let, was a part of Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail.