Industrial Wreckage

a pantoum about day two of the on the ground to ground the drones walk (Chicago to Battle Creek)

I walk past shells of old industrial plants,

In a place that time erased from existence,

So close to the skyscrapers of Chicago

Yet this poisoned place feels like a different world.

In a place that time erased from existence,

Heavy black smoke billows from ancient smokestacks.

In this poisoned place feeling like a strange world.

Rain falls, but the grime cannot be washed away.

Heavy black smoke billows from ancient smokestacks

Making the foul smelling air feel stagnant

Rain falls but the grime cannot be washed away

From the cars, the birds, buildings, and the people.

Sensing the foul smelling air that’s stagnant

In a jungle of pipelines built for oil

Do the cars, the birds, buildings, and the people

Hunger more for black gold than for fresh water?

In a jungle of pipelines built for oil,

I step tentatively on sharp, wet gravel.

That hunger for black gold, not for fresh water,

Has resulted in this broken, used up land.

I step tentatively on sharp, wet gravel

Heading forward but thinking about past stories

Of the people of this broken, used up land,

In a gray place not of their own making.