When someday, not too long from now, the world
Is buried under webs of roads unfurled,
With layer stacked on layer to the skies —
A monument to human enterprise! —
While alleluias rise as carbon smoke
And offerings of crash victims invoke
The god beneath whose angry blast we choke,
The time will come (at least I hope) to ask,
Where are we going? Why? What is the task?
What does this pile of concrete celebrate,
And what have we interred beneath its weight?
Drew Nathaniel Keane is a lecturer in the department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University and a PhD candidate in the School of English at the University of St. Andrews. More of his work is available at drewkeane.com