There is a field with grass and tree
And kangaroo and wallaby.
It lies beyond the city lights,
Far from where traffic snarls and fights.
There is a man who longs to be
Where there’s a field with grass and tree.
He buys the field and strips it bare
And builds his home, his castle, there.
He mows the field right to the ground;
No longer do wild things abound.
They have no place to live and hide.
The man is snug and safe inside.
The field is now a sterile waste;
It’s pretty though and to his taste.
It’s manicured and neat and clean;
You see the man is very green.
The evidence is there as proof,
With solar panels on the roof
And compost bin that’s always full;
His ceiling space is stuffed with wool.
To shape, his foreign shrubs he clips.
Each blade of grass he whipper snips,
And here and there he plants a palm;
They’re trendy so can do no harm.
The animals have moved away;
It’s just too green for them to stay.
The man is laying more concrete;
Destruction is not yet complete.
He tells his friends back in the smoke
He’s really just a simple bloke;
With nature he’s in harmony;
They come to visit – all agree.
And all his dreams have now come true
But still he feels a little blue,
For at his heart a nagging pain;
This sense of loss he can’t explain.
There was a field with grass and tree
And kangaroo and wallaby.
It’s concrete now and brick and turf;
A house so neat, where lives a smurf.
image copyright Dennis N. O’Brien, 2011
dnobrienpoetry 