Where To? (We Should Have Cared)
Earthians have set the Earth on fire
There is a feeling of unease
A sense of malaise
As youths turn to anger and protest
(Can anyone blame them?)
The Amazon is burning
Oceans are warming
Coral reefs are bleaching
Their denizens dying
Glaciers are melting
As is the permafrost
As are the icecaps
North and south
Floods and droughts
Witness the desertification in Chile
So many creatures on the brink of extinction
While countless have already gone there
Can earthians be far behind?
Always the threat of conflict and wars
So-called political leaders
Leading this world to doom and destruction
Through greed for wealth and power
Unwilling to commit
To engage
To lead
Climate change and its effects
Are like a tsunami
And all are in its path
We should have cared
I fear it may be too late
Where to now?
Perhaps back to the beginning
Within
Perhaps where we should have stayed
© Regis Auffray
Rebecca
I remain optimistic. As older citizens we view things differently than the young, but there is nothing different about the science that is finding out all the maladies that you have so concisely and beautifully placed in this poem calling out for action.
We had our chance back at the turn-of-the-century when Al Gore was running for president as the United States and lost because of "hanging chads" and other election misdeeds even though he won the popular vote. What followed was a war to secure oil interests in Iraq and the surrounding area. We all know how that turned out.
The young peoples' protest is just the beginning of a tsunami of efforts, worldwide, to curtail population, recycle, abandon fossil fuels and chemical dependence on growing food. Whole changes in lifestyles necessitated by economic need, and a general, more empathetic view of everyone's plight, including all creatures that inhabit our earth and provide us with food and sustenance of the more spiritual kind.
The warning signs are dire. The action must be heroic and monumental. But the problems will be solved, one by one, as we wake from our sleep and start tackling them in earnest.
Ron
Love ya!
Jane
I loved the way you wrote about being 'within oneself'. Profound!
Sandie