a few dollars above minimum wage
unsure if it is to assuage their pride or guilt
that stirs under a haze of chemicals
the SSNDRI and benzodiazepene fog
that softens the ticks of a first-generation grandfather clock in the foyer
resting on a laminate floor that will never warp into a platform the way a traditional parquet would
no, not with all these gypsum layers and concrete
steel rebars firming the foundation
affirming
reinforcements reinforcing the infrastructure
in more ways than two
construction materials constructing an explanation
foundations echoing founding father sentiments
about the need for this monstrous suburban Sodom
and checkerboard lawns
and mulched flower beds full of uninteresting plants
hybridized
sterilized
with whatever utility left in them robbed
by pesticides
fungicides
herbicides
Hell, even suicides
their chances of evoking such fragile sentiments into such a medicated miasma are slim to none
This dead fucking landscape
people, they aren't found dead in their homes here
they're carted off, instinctively
a rolling stone gathers no moss
a cookie-cutter house gathers no ghosts
no
these places are a means to an end
never the end
they're barely repainted before being sold
by middle aged couples thinking of
retirement
and downsizing from their empty enormous edifices
and tapering the Prozac that helped them cope with work
and putting their parents into the county home
and because they didn't fit in at bars anymore and there was nothing to do on a weeknight
Places that are somehow both rural and metro adjacent
Where you can still smell city smog
and cow shit
Oblivious to their utter lack of "somethingness"
of character that saturates the surroundings
The ancient farmhouses laying abandoned
or at the very least unkempt
Historic walks where millions marched
in cities
against hate,
against injustice,
against despicable working conditions,
and for holiday bar crawls
The ancient woods just beyond the white vinyl fencing of their backyards
keeping dogs and children contained
right past the drainage fields that the neighborhood strokes their egos over
because a documentary stirred something in them
prompting them to leave a little milkweed
too-little too-late
to feel bad for the butterflies
they killed all the seasons before
by planting lilacs to attract them
and saturating the very same in imidocloprid
a deceptive and cruel gesture
These woods
these woods with ancient dams built by indigenous tribes
You can stand here
on structures older than this nation
time before white man's ridiculous adherence to linear time
to when calendars rotated in cycles
Even amongst these ancient ideals and icons these woods are unique
in this aptly-named Sylvan State- most of the forests are new growth
mostly monotonous mountains
comprised entirely of oak
practically a clonal colony
when acorns sink into scorched soiled
from either God's wrath
or slash and burn strategy
these woods are old, old, old growth
roots buried into boulders
of slate
serpentine
Brandywine blue stone
Wissahickon schist
It has adapted
to the fluoridated carbons in the creek
to the invasive sap-sucking insects ferried in from somewhere foreign
to the newly-razed park trails made by a community longing to reconnect with nature
the kind of busy people who pull their SUVs to the shoulder of a highway in rush hour traffic
to look at a sunflower field bewildered and embarrassed
and feeling everything they've lost
Odds are it'll stand
even when the people in the houses are gone
showered with radioactive isotopes
or smothered by rising carbon dioxide
or smote in their search for a quantum trace of השם.