On the path where I walk there is an orange
Which lay, five long days now, moldered, more fringe
Of peel and rind than fruit; acrid, citrus
Stink filled air, with I it’s only witness.

Surprised was I no creature dined the snack
Before rot took it, yet as I looked back
At the human intervention I knew
No thing could pass through there that crawled or flew;

Isolation is the function of man-
Made spaces. And the bleached effect of tan
Soil showed, the land was no longer fit
For anything more than man within it.

I walk and see: Earth’s peel and rind molders
A weight far too great for all our shoulders.