The Pit and the Politicians.

(Based on the regular meeting of the Utah County Commission on Tuesday, March 29. 2016)


In Utah County near the town of Benjamin a pit
was dug that made the residents so mad they nearly spit.
The hole was dug for gravel; it was larger than a crater;
it would have fit a football field and an ocean freighter.
The cougar and coyote, and majestic elk, all fled
from this pockmark in the land as if compelled by dread.
The nearby cattle bellowed at such unsightly digging,
and the nature center took offense at all the rigging.
There was a mink ranch operating in that same precinct,
and all the little critters nearly died and went extinct.
The gravel trucks whizzed in and out, no Stop sign did they heed;
and thus the sacred speed limit they managed to exceed.
Whenever some big gravel truck applied their huge air brake
it caused the china in the houses to rattle, roll, and shake.

This gravel mine grew larger and it threatened to consume

all the local farmland and sweet agriculture doom.
And so the doughty citizens of Benjamin arose
to visit their Commissioners and rub it in their nose.
They spoke their piece in public, though the audience was slight,
then waited to see if the County would take up their fight.
The magistrates were patient as they listened to the bleating,
and then decided . . . sakes alive . . . to hold another meeting!
And so the chasm widens as the landscape disappears,
like a black hole yawning out in space, my little dears.
For all I know that hole will still be out there, gaily humming,
after the Apocalypse and the Second Coming . . .