No streets and no cars
No houses and no lawns
No traffic lights, just starry nights
When I’m on long car rides I look out my window
and imagine how things used to be
Who lived here?
What did they do?
What kind of animals and plants did they use?
Before colonization and invasive species
Before the settlements, westernization, urbanization, and mass endangerment of native species
Before the industrial revolution
Before the coal mines, smog pollution, trains and tracks
Is it possible to take it all back?
Of course not
We’ve gotten used to our destructive ways
The coal warms our home
As well as our planet
We use our plastic
Even though the the consequences are drastic
I look around and see
Everything is evil and full of greed
Everywhere except one simple place
One place men cannot touch
Because those who try to rule it she will give no grace
Look at the desert filled with nothing but sand
And nothing but cacti and unfarmable land
So barren people cannot write
Of cloudless blue sky and the scorching light
But the desert wilderness is beautiful even though no one sees
Of just the basic beauty of not being seen
Because without natural resources that bring out a lust for greed
The desert continues to be trouble free
Free of people
Free of entitlement
Free of greed
Free of being stripped of her natural resources as if she is not a living thing
This is my garden of Eden
You must think I’m crazed
But God only talks to man
In this barren place
You look and see nothing but dead bushes and mountains of sand
But I see the only thing untouched by man
--Allison F., Adult