When waste is piled as
hills and mountains
we call it land-fill
as if land itself is lacking,
as if valleys, lakes
are voids expecting,
for something better
for a new foundation
to be part of something new
a factory or warehouse for
the brand new waste in waiting
we call products,
soon to be another land-fill.
Today Punam hosts at dVerse and inspires from the season of Indian artshows to either write ekphrastic poetry to a few selected pictures she has curated or write poems inspred from any one of the names of three Indian art shows;
Nothing Twice
Chance Remains of Another Time
Open Fences
My choice was to go ekphrastic.
May 12, 2026
Björn Rudbergs writings 
Your alliterative title is an effective hook, Björn, and the word picture you painted is terrifying. I agree that the word ‘land-fill’ makes it seem ‘as if land itself is lacking;’. I would love it if people went back to the old ways of making things rather than relying on factory-made items.
Thank you… I could not refrain from writing something else from that image.
You’re welcome, Björn.
Such an apt take, Björn and something that I feel very strongly about. Delhi has three land-fills.
These lines are so telling,
“as if land itself is lacking,
as if valleys, lakes
are voids expecting,
for something better”.
I am so happy myself for the fact that Sweden has no landfills any longer… but there are some old ones.
Lucky you!
An excellent poem for the image! It’s interesting….much of Boston that was built from “landfill”. And on a terrifying note, we have friends from Illinois who, after they were married, bought an older home they could afford…raised their kids in that house….but it started sinking, unevenly. They did some reserach and found that it was built on landfill and that was not told to them by the realtor they bought it from. They’d lived in it for so many years…no way to really get their money back. They ended up taking their losses, selling it for literally $100 to someone who then tore it down and tried to add to the landfill to make it more stable. As Brian our friend said, even then, there’d be no way he’d building anything on it!