Avoid the Meadow

You must never rush out on the meadow
Where new hunters hunt with new rifles
Rifle through paper and plot schemes
Plots to be purchased for building schematics
Not for meat, nor pelt, no sport do they take aim
But for the wood itself
And there can be no wildlife without the wild

There might be danger
From blades that cut
No, not through the body
But through the oaks
And into the Earth
That cut us off from hedge and growth
But never cut into profits

Out there, we’re unprotected
No shade from heat
Nor break from wind
Neither does the water slow
We are visible and naked
Subjected to laws we never crafted
Laws of nature and of the state

The meadow is wide and open
Clear cut and level
Nigh onto dead
Home is extinguished
There is no safety
This is no longer ours

There are no trees or bushes to hide us
From harm or from elements
Privacy is stolen away
Where scaffolds formed from our trees
Support walls holding open windows
Which peer out over our lost kingdom

So, we have to be very careful
Lest we like the land become conquered
Colonized and gentrified and homogenized
Our home has become the gun
From which bricks fire like bullets
To strike us down
You must never rush out on the meadow, Bambi