"Our Impact" & "Nature Always Wears the Colors of the Spirit"

 

 

                                    "Our Impact" (2025) by Colin Adams

 

“Nature Always Wears the Colors of the Spirit”

    by
    Mullen Andrews

Consider the automobile —
BMW, Hyundai, Ford;
What animal produces its skin and organs?
What plant? What weather event?
The shiny, unnaturally shiny,
The smooth, unnaturally smooth
Skin.
The organs tuned, symmetrical, loud,
Bright like neon, soft like slippers,
Hard like combustion, torque;
Scrape your knuckle,
Blood and oil,
Coughing smoke…

The Earth Mother.
Steel, plastic, leather, rubber, paint, more
Plastic —
Birthed from her.
Drills piercing her, blood-oil spilling up, out;
Processed by alchemists,                
Formed into dash boards, door panels, 40-thousand-mile            

Tires.                                       
Glass from sand.
Steel from iron pulled from her abdomen.

How many times over?
20,000,000 a year.

Consider the city —
New York, Tokyo, Dubai;
Skyscrapers wrought from rock, minerals;
Tar, cement, paint encasing the ground below,
As it suffocates.
Nature fed to machines,
The earth consuming itself —
And the alchemists —
Cracks
And returns to the Cosmos.

© Spring, 2025, Richmond