Junkyard Tripping

Took a trip out to our dump when a hot dry wind was blowing hard

Could see that funny yellow dust in the air well before we got there

Bulldozers and giant aerators stirred up a foul, freshly amalgamated scent

Brown and lumpy liquids leaked from below where we tossed away our stuff

Sun baked junkyard men smoked cigarettes and joked about their health

The county dump is on a hillside above a Western river on its way to California

There’s a posted list of prohibited items but no one checks your stuff

There’s laws about sanitary disposal but the county’s out of money

So we got a concentrated plume of an evil witch’s brew not too far from home

A small price the earth that god so loved must pay for our ordained presence here

Well, that smell gave me a headache so I guess that I’m still not a real man

In fact it was slightly lingering in my nose til late into the morning after

But I wasn’t all like tongue-clucking, finger-pointing and exposing some great sin

It was just the stuff that you and me don’t want sitting around our family homes

All tossed into a toxic grimy blot not suited for the pregnant or might become so

An accepted, respected and budgeted part of this small and rustic community

But I saw things there I could not be part of as my eyes filled with its bitter dust

I could not merge this place into my vision of our happy family way of life

There were no picnic tables or benches beneath the trees that could never grow here

Children would not be romping among the twisted metal coated with corrosives

There was however no escaping that this place is an integral part of our home

A place where our multi-chemical legacy returns to the surrounding ecosystem

Out-of-sight, downwind and downstream is just the best that we can do for temporary

This is the spot where all the other cleanups go, never meant to be cleaned up

It’s just a giant compost heap for toxic waste, garden varieties of trash & all manner of recyclables

A place where plastic is smashed into tiny pieces without ever breaking down

Where dirty oil, old paint and mild insecticides all mix and blend and start to flow

Yeah, food remains and old clothes get stirred with brake fluid and shrink wrap

There are rich veins of jumbled aluminum and glass we chose not to reuse

But all that tossed out paper soaks up a lot of the nasty liquids and stays in place

The tree limbs and grass clippings and rotting food produce flammable methane underneath

Hope our kids don’t have to mine this before it dries out and the smell goes away