Where Have the Flowers Gone

Bluebonnets in full bloom,

Along roadsides and empty lots,

Shimmering in morning light,

Longing to be admired.

Unaware of the bulldozer.

Turned earth, uprooted wildflowers,

Urban blight disregards seeds long since planted,

Lady Bird, Texas’ Johnny Appleseed would weep,

Here dream of beauty seen as a First Lady’s folly.

Each citizen is banned from plucking even one flower,

Nuzzled in blades of grass, under foot of picture takers,

We cannot gather even one, but massive machines uproot all,

Each flower, every petal destroyed by corporate will.

What happened to the field behind my house?

Each March carpeted with blue, then orange and yellow,

A crater lays beneath a looming crane,

The open wound devoured by trucks spewing concrete.

Names of living plantae now the moniker of buildings and streets,

Bluebonnet Lane, Paintbrush Way as commonplace as Main Street,

As artificial as the dotcom links and bitcoin values,

The buildings empty shells where flowers grew to welcome spring

Flowers we could not gather.