Friday, July 10, 2009

Incongruity

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I'm walking along a dirt road in central Oregon. There is gray gravel strewn across the road to provide added traction, but most of it has has been pushed to the side by vehicles over time, so it sits in burms of gray and cinderblock red and sun faded white.

To my right there is a fence with vertical green metal rods, with a few inches of white painted on the top edges. Between them and wrapped around each one is barbed wire, twisted and warning. Intended to keep out only the larger livestock or wild animals, because the smaller ones can easily slither under, hop over or through, creep up or even burrow under. You can't really keep out the wildlife.

And just over the warning fence is a golf course. Among the early July yellow and brown desert grasses, the blue-gray sagebrush, and a few remaining native pines, there is a bright green grassy, knoll, a couple of mounds of pushed aside natural gray and weather beaten soil as hazards, and even more expansive patches of green. The green is dotted with hundreds of white balls, scattered like the wildflowers on the natural side of the road. An anomaly here in the desert as I walk.

And here am I thinking how outrageous this sight is. How ruinous of the landscape. Isn't anything sacred / where is the nature / what are we doing?!?

As I walk on this dirt road along side this golf course in the desert and post to my blog on my Blackberry.
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