Damage We've Done

If I stand at the side of the road long enough and stare down this valley, maybe I can will us not to destroy any more of this. I drive by here every time I go anywhere out of my part-time hometown. Mostly I take it for granted, as I suppose most passing by do, if they notice it at all. It is along side the road to the freeway, next to any ugly concrete bridge on a curve too dangerous to pause long on. Under the bridge, we have destroyed the pattern of the stream, and across the road, upstream, what was a beautiful view has been defaced and mangled by some sort of hideous development that is either industrial or agricultural and has marred the entire landscape there not only with its building and its road but with some sort of extensive digging for some sort of service utility. It makes me angry to look at once was a beautiful view on that side and it makes me fear for the fate of this side of the road. How many thousands of years did it take for this stream to carve this valley and settle into this pattern of windings and how many people rested at its edge and maybe watered ponies there or set up temporary camp to take a meal? It is most beautiful in the spring when the grass is still short and its windings are filled with water. I have never seen it flood when other straighter creeks are overflowing their too deep and ugly cut banks, so the oxbows manage to handle the added water of a storm. Imagine these hills and valleys covered with prairie grasses and flowers instead of pasture grasses cut by fences and imagine the hilltops capped with bur oak trees and black raspberry bramble and imagine the peace of living there or just visiting with no highway traffic rushing past And hope with me that we have the good sense to do no more damage to this than we already have.