There isn't much of the lake to see anymore
Looking out from the observation platform
Built before the vegetation grew up around it
Obscuring our view of the now distant open water
As we stand there peering into the expanse
Two parents and their young daughter walk over
And the father points across to the far shore
To the skyline of high density housing and retail stores
None of that was there when I was a boy
He says, his voice still marveling in astonishment
A remark I suspect his daughter has heard from him before
Though she thinks what she sees now is the way it will remain
At least that would have been my view as a child
Before discovering the unexpected unfamiliarity
Returning years later to revisit places I have lived
Finding so much so different than what I remember
Nothing lasts for long when everything changes fast
Driven by the money making activity of men with machines
Cutting down and filling in and building up developments
Until we don't recognize the place where we grew up
Of course it's not as if the natural world isn't always in transition
The succession of plants transforming wetland habitat into woodlands
The landscape altered by erosion and floods and upheavals
What you might notice in the course of a lifetime
But the unprecedented impact of human activity on the climate
At a tipping point even as capitalism continues its exploitation
Accelerating the ongoing process of the current mass extinction
Makes for a fearsome prospect of what that girl will experience
