Grooves of Progress

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Machines

groove through mud

tearing the landscape

Trees ripped out

Logs piled high

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Ground into chips

Shade becomes sunshine

Population increases

New developments spring up

in the blink of an eye

Muddy grooves replaced

with groovy rows of houses

“All made out of ticky-tacky…”

Today at d’Verse, we are in the groove with De Jackson.  She asked us to write a groovy poem for Quadrille Monday.

It greatly concerns me when I see the amount of development going on all around me. Houses being built five or ten at a time are popping up everywhere.  To do this, they clear-cut all the trees and grind them to shreds.  We cannot keep doing this, without irreparable damage to our environment.  The song at the end was popular back in the sixties during my college days. It is a hook that continues to run through my head.

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Photos: Dwight L. Roth

65 thoughts on “Grooves of Progress”

  6. Dwight,
    Those houses are the dreams of people who long for their own home. It’s a shame they’re not all all finely built but that’s all they can afford. Families will live there and thrive hopefully like so many who already have homes of their own.
    pax,
    dora

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    • I understand that people need a place to live. Around here there is a great need for lower income housing. But instead the high end developments just keep being built and what might have been lower income housing is now out of reach! The solutions are not that easy to solve especially as populations increase.

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  7. I just wrote a poem to this and opened to yous Dwight. It is such a delicate balance. great poem and Not sure if you saw my post last year with the same song. I think you did. My area in Daly City is where this song was made and man it was soooo true!!!💖💖

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  11. It’s happening here also. The tree roots help soak up the moisture and hold the soil in place. When the trees are shredded and the water continues to rise, what will happen? Unabated human development that nobody seems to care enough to put the brakes on 😦

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  25. Great poem! I remember when that song came out and I thought it was a perfect comment on “subdivisions” that were being built in areas that were once woods and productive farmfields near our house. Yeah….those subdivisions were filled with houses that all had one of about four building plans….and no landscaping or if they had landscaping, it was those THIN trees that were little more than saplings that would take years and years to mature….but the houses and driveways to their attached garages were all there creating a little maize of a neighborhood where once nature was glorious in its diversity! I enjoyed your post!

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  27. I love that song. Great poem.
    The older developments like that in Canberra are little badly insulated shoe boxes on good sized blocks. The new ones are huge ugly boxes with air conditioning on tiny blocks. I guess at least less land has to be cleared that way, so maybe that’s progress…

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  28. Sad photos, Dwight! Well-written poem. “Groovey” song! ❤

    I don't know the solutions, but development is progressing at a frightening pace. All of last year, the air where we live was filled with smoke from the burning brush that had been cleared. Five or six different housing developers set up shop on a huge tract of land. Large houses are being built on small lots. Soon the highways will be even more congested…

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