Wildlife Trail
Perhaps it was naïve of me
to turn down Apple Orchard Lane
past the new McMansions
with their pairs of spindly new maples
and expect to find at the end of the street
an apple orchard.
I should have known
there are no longer foxes on Fox Run,
no blueberry bushes sagging with fruit
on Blueberry Circle, and of course
no old farm on Old Farm Road,
no farm at all.
Eventually it dawned on me
that the one thing I would not see
on Pheasant Way, Quail Run, and Woodcock Lane
is a pheasant or a quail or a woodcock,
all having long ago departed
for some small remaining rectangle of space.
Named for what they replace, or drive out,
like the generic doom of Wild Life Trail,
they might as well be called Dodo Avenue, or
Passenger Pigeon Place, or Woolly Mammoth Terrace.
Why not some honest names
for these mausoleum streets:
Overconsumption Highway,
maybe, or Entitlement Circle,
or perhaps just the Boulevard of Greed.
