Poem for an Urban Child

Where are the paths into the woods?
Gone.
By some, forgotten.
Where are the deer who came down to the edge,
Nibbling on our nasturtiums?
Where are the spider webs,
Glistening in the morning dew?
That bandit-faced raccoon,
Who scavenged through the leavings of our lives;
Who would ever have thought I’d miss him?
Now concrete covers the ground
Where once the succulent blackberries waited
To be made into grandma’s pies.
Prefab homes cover the place
Where once I saw a rabbit,
Sun shining through translucent ears.
A car sits here now. Vile oil,
Like blood, dripping from its carcass,
Where Trillium once bloomed.
All in the name of progress, some say,
But our children are shriveling here.
Has anybody noticed?
Fingers on computer keys,
Eyes glued to their TV’s,
Synthesizing sounds to acid rock.
Where once a child might have knelt right here,
Catching polliwogs,
Or run across a field of daisies,
Chasing fireflies,
Instead he sits within his home, a tomb,
In woods that once were my cocoon.


by Judy Borman Harding