Before
The stream trickles
softly,
meandering where it pleases
through the forest.
Clear birdsong
emanates from all directions.
Ferns and moss cover the banks.
A variety of tall trunks
rise skyward.
Cool, fresh air
wafts through them.

Arrival
A shadow appears on the ground.
A footstep echoes.
The shadow grows and moves into the river.
A second footstep.
The shadow forms the outline of a person,
standing on the bank, projected onto the rushing water.
Twigs and leaves crunch under a boot.
It has begun.

Day 1
The brook flows normally,
the unknown shadow darkening it.
Footsteps give a beat
to the melody of the birds.
A few footprints
scar the moss on the bank.
A figure, although dwarfed by the trees,
rises among them.
The smell of sweat
taints the pure, sweet air.

Day 2
The water runs
around a strange new object,
hard, round, transparent,
with different colored scribbles on the outside,
and the remains of a brown liquid on the inside,
that kills a passing fish.
Birds lament
over one of their brethren
that fell from a tree with bang
never to be seen again.
Footprints cover the vegetation
on the banks.
The trees,
in their own silent, unmoving way,
mourn for one oak,
young and healthy,
that keeled over with a crash
and was dragged off.
New scents,
smells of smoke and chemicals
infuse the atmosphere.

Day 3
Oil covers the surface
of the slightly lower creek,
piling up on a beaver dam
of bottles and cans
fish and water plants suffocate in silence.
A substantially lower amount of birds
each mourn a lost relative.
The vegetation on the bank
has turned brown,
trampled and torn up.
The trees look around and wonder where all the stumps came from
where their friends used to be.
Stale air
hangs between the remaining trunks
heavy with the aromas
of smoke, chemicals, and death.

Day 4
Cement walls
force equal amounts of water and sludge
with a still lower surface line
to go straight
under bridges into a big machine
that eats fish
and floods a clearing.
The bare, muddy banks
would erode quickly if not for the walls.
The air is no longer
mostly colorless, odorless gases.
The field of stumps
shows no signs of life
excepting some microbes
and humans.
A few scattered birds
choke on the smog in the air.

Today
Now the stream runs dry,
a muddy scar on the ground,
full of litter, not water.
A sterile, flat plane,
empty,
stretches in all directions.
The air is black,
barely transparent.
Not even a single bird
flies through it.

Tomorrow?