A Frame of Earth and Sidewalk

I work in one of those large, box shaped buildings in an office park zone near the Oakland airport. I think if I were on the second floor, I could see the bay from here, but as it is, it’s just row after row of warehouses and an soft blue sky full of airplanes. You get a really dramatic contrast between the oppressive concrete and tame nature. Almost like manufacturing and deskwork could somehow wrangle the local trees and birds into something pretty. Like you could hang nature on the wall.

The tiny little birds mostly live off crumbs from the taco cart that visits the lunchroom every day. I have to imagine that the six years we’ve been in this location is enough to have fed two or three full generations of them from eggs to their little deathbeds. When you think about it, that means that they’re basically made of corn tortillas and list night’s leftovers. Kind of makes me like them all the more.

It’s a little grotesque. The endless cordoning off of these gardens, like accents. Afraid of anything more than a bush. Even Thoreau thought that people were afraid of the natural world, all those decades ago. Now the mention of natural things frightens the people into a panic and the media into a feeding frenzy. Brown recluse spiders biting. Mosquitoes bringing west Nile virus. A cougar might kill hundreds of children. Disappearing pets must be coyotes. Birds? Flu.

I almost think urban decay and turned over rubble would be more honest as a compliment to all these tinted windows and day use parking lots. I want to knock down a Wal-Mart and put in a marsh. Stretch my legs a little. Either admit defeat and let the sprawl take over, or make some concessions to the slimy and the earthy. Enough of this Thomas Kincaid meets the Hanging Gardens of Babylon stuff.