The American Backyard

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There are few things in this world more repulsive than the American backyard.
Repulsive, I say, not for what they are but for what they lack.
Though they are a barren tundra of invasive green,
where once stood 
Oak 
was ripped from its roots for want of mortar.
Where once was shelter for mite and shrew, sprawls desolation brought by copyrighted chems.
Where once was olive all along the coast now sit bombs,
dormant
but armed like the corpse of a yesteryear soldier.
On the range they wage war against geese and gophers,
their hours-long battle rewarded with a hearty meal in the fortress of dreams.
In the theater they wage war against homes
their decades-long battle rewarded with their absence.

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Atop their piles of ash and grass sits one gardener, or few,
who hold the fool belief that their will alone shapes the world,
that their thought should conquer the world.
The belief is one bred.
For next to the gardener’s heart is lodged a new organ.
Formed of metal
and filled with sulfur
which produces a firm belief in the power of stagnation over erosion;
That all change can be reverted back to its essence in the face of twice a week your daily supplications.
The collective delusion that your till can move mountains
and that those mountains will shield you
and that you need shielding
from beauty deemed
bugs.