I am the Earth, your mother
and you are my children.

I am from
the cosmic dust
of a thousand, billion, trillion stars;
I  was conceived in tumult;
I’ve endured millions asteroid hits
I have felt cataclysmic comet shots,
hot lava flows over my face,
volcanic steam;
titanic explosions-
my insides
blown up;
where time and time again,
asteroids destroyed all my life;
but I started again;
renewed it
and I gave birth to you,
to all life.

I have created
beautiful blue oceans
continents, and woods
greens, and life, life
I have given life everywhere.

I took from the seas
my tiniest amino
bits
and created the smallest creatures;
one cell first,
then colonies
and then whole beings,
you;

I nurtured beautiful and ugly creatures alike,
your brothers and sisters.

I also gave you the moon
for silver nights,
the stars for inspiration,
a magnetic shield
to protect your from the burning rays of the sun;
I gave you food, trees and animals
so that you might thrive.
I taught you fire.

You are all my children
whom I have reared in paradise;
in a world of plenty.

I took you from the caves
and showed you how to grow large brains,
sacrificed my own wood trees
so that you might eat your food;
gave you animal skins
of my own creation
to shelter you from winter;
gave you water.

I showed you the beauty of the stars;
and too, alas, too
a brain big enough to study war.

And you did discover war;
you discovered hate;

you took my abundance
and transformed it
into destruction.

My forests now burn
ignited by your hand;
you have rent my face with mining scars
and quarries;
polluted my rivers and oceans
for beads and baubles;
and fleeting shiny things
for your amusements,
and, then you threw them away;
whole pollution mountains created.

There seems no retreat from you
and the relentlessness
with which you pursue
all this
for reasons
I do not fathom;
my canopy ages.

Hear me my children;
my fate is entrapped
with yours,
whether you live
is whether I live,

what you do
can destroy me
and life itself.

I will return to being a cold, rocky world
in the rushing void;
my blues
will become gray
and then black.

Hear me my children
for we are family.