Toxic air searing my lungs,

I travel

Through the Gilded City.

I see its many boisterous people

Sitting in their comfy little bungalows,

Reminiscing.

“How dreadful,” they say, “how terribly sick the world is.”

They ask each other about things only they’d recall:

Do you remember the Blue Macaw? The Giraffe?

The rolling fields of fertile Oklahoma? The vibrant colors of the Great Coral Reef?

Do you remember the white winter crown Earth used to wear?

“Yes,” they murmur excitedly, “Yes, yes, I remember.”

These strange words have no meaning to me.

The people of the Gilded City

Do not live in my world of

Steel, cement, and smog.

They live in the old natural world.

They live in the fanciful memories of what used to be.

Even now, they reminisce

As my world

Begins to decay.

Who could have caused it?

No one knows; the blame’s been shifted too much

The Gilded City glows with wealth,

And its golden gates are sealed tight.

Soon the fetor and rot of the outside world will seep in,

And the Gilded City will begin to die, too:

The final atonement for its sins.