Rising from brick-brown earth
Where fields already planted in uniform rows
Shows thin beginnings of bright green crop
Beside an agriculture school
A glittering mountain grows
Among the pine forest ranges of Catalunya
The accumulated debris of potassium salts
Moved ever-higher – and wider – by heavy machinery
Transport for avaricious business-as-usual
Activities of speculation
Risk life forms for profit
This augmented inselberg
Ever-spreading
Altered geology
Fast becomes symbol of so-called progress
To amplify
Waste and neglect
The natural watershed
Now interrupted by sodium chloride
Subject to gravity
Soaks through colossal mining spoil
Industrial-scale tailings
Holding saline residue
Percolates through to groundwater
Makes unhealthy headwater streams
Where unseen organisms perish
Feeds a larger river system
Unprocessed detritus and potash toxins
Bound for the Barcelona beaches
Where salt meets salt
