Angry Nescience

Ghost-like it gathers,
this once earth-hovering presence,
rising now in lock-step high above,
amassing its density of might.

How innocent once,
this source of warmth and comfort,
as we camp-fired this,
stove-cooked that.
even combusting heat’s essence way back,
giving Henry Ford a shout out,
the shrill echoing continuing through each graying dawn.

Today…

Status quo marches with flaming torches,
the smoke partnering with envy,
infecting 3rd world minds
into a diseased compliance.

“We too can burn our way
Into 1st world prominence.”

Yesterday’s village mind-sets became
small town conversions,
became city mutations,
became global malignancy.

Higher and higher
rises competition’s flotsam,
merging greed with ambition,
committing atmospheric genocide.

To listen carefully
is to hear civilization’s angry nescience
echoing with thunderous, skyward, boot prints
lynching themselves in the clouds.

Will the guilty ever know of
the race to heal before suffocation
silences Nature’s ability to forgive?