Earth is littered, no doubt. She is being pummelled by more categories of pollution a regular person may be able to 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 in their immediate neighbourhood and that also their bodies have been invaded by them a long time ago.
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 emissions 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 continuous 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. While a number of members of the global community still bury their heads in nescience, others have long acknowledged that the environmental red-alert button has not been pushed by accident. It is they who are acting with invigorated force to better the prospects for all of us.
But then again: Have bad habits not 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.
–
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 force 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.
–
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.
And 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
Laternsertal/Austria: It is worth saving the planet! ©Christina Feyerke
Header image: Courtesy of ©H.D. Feyerke