There is a vacant lot

right there between the Walmart and the Home Depot

a big open lot, about 2 acres, that is for sale but unoccupied

which means the flowers get a chance to bloom

in a gallery of beautiful colors

open to all who care to walk about and look

get a little dirt in their shoes

but one day the city came and posted a warning sign

then the next day the mowers came and in one fell swoop

shaved it all down to a clean slate

as naked as a parking lot

now the cottontails that lived there

have no place to go

and the 2 wild ducks that hid in the tall grass are homeless

the insects and lizards and other small creatures

are displaced to who knows where

and so it goes

man cannot keep his hands off the wild

but is always tinkering

encroaching at the edges

his efforts to make things uniform and tidy

destroys the extemporaneous beauty

of the free and wild.