Climate Change: Hell and High Water

11.10.2024

Earth is littered, no doubt. She is being pummelled by any sort of pollution we can possibly conjure up. It lingers on/in ground, water and air and thus permeates our entire global ecosystem that is now striking back with opposing evils like drought and floods. The average polluter may be unaware of the toxic substances wafting around them.

What we do know is that giant carbon footprints are spangling our inglorious paths. How presumptuous the speculation that we could make them vanish at random through the loophole of emission trading: Along with a sprinkle of stardust comes your bartered absolution by means of a magic wand?

Ignorance towards environmental issues and the facts-denial often lurking in its wake, are responsible for the lion’s share in the harm done. It takes much effort to change one’s ways to stop destruction and to enable and facilitate healing – and still manage our everyday’s lives, private and business. Now that the world community is – again – reeling on red alert and presently willing to act with invigorated force, prospects for betterment are not that bleak. But then again: Bad habits have always died hard.

Thank you for reading this poem:

May Earth prevail

A Rap

Our sun knows no mercy, but it isn’t its fault

that man keeps ignoring what nature has told

over decades by sending the recurring warning

that heating Earth’s surface does mean global warming.

The temperatures rise, our woods are on fire,

hot winds cough their destructive breath

over meadows and fields and every spire

where the pious hope to ease wrath.

Refrain:

Our Earth runs a fever, our rivers turn dry,

scorched soil is too arid to provide us with rye.

She fed us for long but has spared us the notion

that all this will end in a massive commotion.

Fish gasping in polluted waters are dying,

seas drowning in immortal PET.

Industrial players have forever been lying,

denying the imminent threat.

Storms and tornados are lashing with rage,

they cruelly develop to gigantic gauge.

Forewarnings have echoed until they went hoarse.

Now trees are uprooted with violent force

and roofs are stripped naked and roads ripped apart

and people smashed boneless when disaster strikes hard.

Our glaciers are melting, our poles keep on thawing,

our oceans reach levels unknown.

We are foolishly waiving the decay that’s gnawing

the edges off our plush comfort zone.

Instead of conclusions, we are spinelessly drawing

new cloud-castles for our ramshackle throne.

We exploited our forests for the wood and the money,

bred countless bovine whose gas sends us running

away from their billions of tonnes of green poo

and from their destructive methane gassing, too.

Our Earth is embittered and spews straight from hell

her entrails that issue a sulphorous smell.

Refrain

Our Earth runs a fever, our rivers swell up,

our soil is too parched to devour the flood

that washes away with its almighty power

what farmers have sowed, before seeds can flower.

The problem is man-made, no use to complain,

too late for regrets or more dances for rain.

We excessively fly, use cars by the zillions,

take cruise-ships that transport mere towns of civilians.

Our Earth has succumbed to continuous treason,

we have thoughtlessly squandered her trust.

We have recklessly plundered her precious resources,

supporting abuse by most criminal forces.

We all avoided to question the reasons,

have cowardly destroyed her versatile crust.

A sense of foreboding looms every dry season

that Earth might finally crumble to dust.

A sole human creature dwells lonely on Mars,

remote from his former Blue Planet.

His spouse passed away to a different sphere,

they both came to build a new life up here.

Within his small shelter his hopes turn a farce:

“Why did I abandon my Earth for this Mars!?”

Aware that his plans will never come true

his mind reels with cold premonition:

The infertile grounds on this ferrous space ball

won’t offer the proper condition.

No dream can now render his thought-chain unlinked

nor can he revoke – that he is extinct.

Poem by ©Christina Feyerke 2019

A meadow at Laterns_Vorarlberg

Laternsertal/Austria: It is worth saving the planet! ©Christina Feyerke

Header image: Courtesy of ©H.D. Feyerke