too many waterfalls

'There are too many waterfalls here...'

.

So begins Elizabeth Bishop's beautiful, beautiful poem, 'Questions of Travel'. (Which, by the way, i'm much less keen on now than i used to be. i still think it's a beautiful work of art though.) It's a gorgeous opening line, conjuring clouds of spray (is that what it's called? waterfall spray? waterfall mist? what awful, clumsy-sounding words for something so beautiful. there must be some other word for it...) and roaring waters.
.
There are no (real) waterfalls here. Tihe only ones are fake, and nothing much to look at either. But i've been thinking, the opening line for Singapore would be, 'There is too much building material here.' Which doesn't sound quite as nice, because the rhythm is off, and sound-wise the words just don't work as well. But, in a sense, that too fits the meaning of the line. Building materials generally aren't beautiful the way waterfalls are. And i've been feeling this for a long time now -- that there's just too much building material here, too much matter -- concrete, steel, glass ... This place is becoming so built up. More and more and more of it. It's suffocating. It makes my skin crawl.
.
Can we not just let things be? Have spaces which remain just that -- space, with green grass and trees and a piece of blue sky? (Of course not. We need to build more shopping malls to generate more GDP, and more housing to house more people to help us generate more GDP ... )
.
Is there no end to all this desiring? Wanting more and more and then more of things. Do people here ever feel the need to stay still, be quiet, and just be?
.
.