Poem: November 3, 2019

Education

All this agriculture,
all this muscling of nature
into geometric shapes,
whole academies devoted
to defining our resource needs,
preparing the soil, killing
the weeds. All the might
of industry brought to bear
through algorithms and
automation, big machines
that flatten and process
and restrain the chaotic
tendency of nature to mingle
and defend itself, to bloom
too soon and overgrow.
All of this careful measurement
of yields, all of this trading
of futures, all of this tampering
and modification toward
desirable traits, all of this
energy to bring them to market.