Getting The Green Back. Who recalls those (g)olden days when a mayor's word Meant a promise given by His Worship would be kept? Nowadays his Council consider this quaintly absurd, As the old Burghers say, a silly and antiquated concept. Back then when hereabouts was more village than town The mayor and hired surveyor set out in horse and trap, When well past the black stump* the two stepped down And in a sun-dappled glade they surveyed the map... The mayor could see a big future for his hamlet ahead, The surveyor was there to draw his mark in the sand, A green belt to encircle the soon-to-be-a-city's spread- Long after the mayor had fallen these trees would stand. But the young town came on in leaps and bounds, Town houses swiftly replacing rural fields and streams, Soon the rude city butted up against long sacred grounds, Such an impediment to investors get-rich-quick schemes! Builders gazed enviously upon the old swathe of green But the latest mayor recalled promises he'd sworn to keep, Told the investors this oasis must stay as it had always been- Or, he might change his mind- but change don't come cheap. Dis Honor and his noble Council convened in the Town Hall; Was any behind-closed-doors decision ever so open and shut? No mention of conservation blighted their conversation at all, All voted 'Aye' to clear that wilderness, each took a hefty cut. These days no mayor can afford to hold back time and tide, Hereabouts into soulless assholes pockets cash readily flows, and now brick-a-crap boxes litter the once quiet countryside, On once verdant glades only the grey concrete jungle grows. * The back of beyond, off in the wilderness, untouched by civilisation.
'Irrepressible little blossom, ain't ya?'
©Obbverse.
Obbverse 
good photo- I’ve come upon a scene like that a couple of times, but never it seems when I had a camera with me. A universal disappointment what you so poetically describe… its the gist of why I gave up working professionally in conservation by about age 22. At one time, it was my expected career path.
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I know what you mean about youthful dreams. They can kill you. I remember reading about the crapfest that was Love Canal near Niagara Falls. I put down the book in real despair. Sometimes we can’t save the whale, you can only hope to save your sanity.
On a musical note, this was initially sadly ‘inspired’ by listening to the Eels ‘A Daisy Through Concrete’ on shuffle as I drove past what once was our green belt. Apropos of nothing really, just how the mind ‘works.’
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You can only pave over the flowers so many times before we’ve no scenery left for the future.
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True, true. one of these days all the green will turn to grey. Hopefully there’s still a good few years left for us to smell the flowers along the way.
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