The Brush Pile

H. W. Bryce

Some people saw the symbolism of the

‘brush pile’ bulldozer residue, ‘waste,’

From clearing the land for farms. In the

piles of driftwood washed out to sea

and washed back upon the shor int

random piles.

It was

USA inaugural day, a new president

Come to sweep out the detritus of the old.

And they were right.

But

I saw beauty in the piles of broken,

Stacked up tree limbs, and roots.

I saw death and destruction,

I saw renewal, reconstruction,

I saw greed and I saw goodness,

I saw the darkness, but I saw

The Light peeping through.

I saw the worst in men,

And I saw the best in men.

There it all was, pushed aside, piled

Up high, waiting for the match to

Light up the revolution.

I saw Adam and Eve there in their Eden,

I saw the serpent and the end of Eden.

And yet…

And yet…

There was the Evil brought down by God

And Goodness shall prevail in all the days of our lives.

I shall follow the light.

—

It was a vast and endless land

And I saw so many brush piles

Left in remembrance of those

Vast and endless forests that

We cleared for the farmland,

And left to rot into that rich soil at the

End of the field, ready fertilizer

for the weeds.

We were opening up this vast

new land. Its vast new vistas,

to fill (back) up with dreams.

I don’t think that we thought much

About the consequences of our

Actions, only about our futures.

After all, this new land was infinite,

And we needed space to plant those

Dreams, to grow crops to feed us, and

To sell to support us as our dreams grew.

And we filled them.

What else mattered?

At the time?

We had to survive.

We had not where we came from.