Scars

It’s striking 

2000 feet above

As far as the eye can see

Highways

Houses

Skyscrapers 

Sports fields

Gravel pits

Not a stretch of earth untouched 

Even the rural farmland  

Thoroughly scraped, seeded, grown 

And scraped again

Windmills churn 

  To satisfy our lust for energy

Farmlands sprout

  To feed our abundant appetite 

So crowded 

Yet this view rural by world standards 

We have

As a population of insects

Exploded across the landscape 

Consuming, often voraciously 

As many who experience surplus

Millions more suffer hunger, thirst 

There will come a reckoning 

When resources drain

When crops fail

When storms shroud the planet

When we encroach too far

Silence will return

Buildings will crumble

We will fade away

Leaving only scars

For nature to engulf and scour anew