Paradise Lost Bit by Bit

Paradise Lost is proposed by Poetry Jam as this week's prompt. Several interpretations are suggested, but it occurred to me that we are re-running the Biblical fall of man in slow motion, over however many generations - and what would Milton have made of it were he alive today?

Lush hedgerows, green and bright with berries,
dry stone walls, a sweep of corn,
its ragged edge against the purple hills - all
lost to view behind the mighty coffee hoardings.

A mile of yellow sands, a line of foam,
a chalk-white cliff is nature's solar panelling -
all lost to New Developments.

Bare rock emerging from its heather cloak,
the purple tints nuanced against
the rust hues of its seams -
lost now to yellow paint graffiti - the signatures
of local gangs that roam these days.
(Navajo Indians did the same, but they
with meanings that the tribe found spiritual.)

A delicate environment for adders,
butterflies, sand lizards, voles and moths
is lost to soil erosion from its over-use.
Walkers, quad- and motor-bikes take heavy tolls.

Prime stretch of river lined with rushes and wild life.
Small pools with eddies. Willows. Rocks.
All lost to rusting hulks -
old ships, parked up to sit the down-turn out.

On Arctic wastes the polar bears lose out
to toxic chemicals washed off our lands -
that's yours and mine -
and carried north by currents in the air and seas.

A once-pure food chain tainted now with mercury.
(Used recently to make insecticides.)
The concentrations build
each level sullied more than that below,
and at the top the prize for most contaminated
goes to the food we eat. (That's you and I.)