Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Welcome to the Age of Indifference


    Oil extracted from the ground

in prodigious amounts

to feed the hunger of humans in the

age of the irascible machine.

 

From the ancient carbon stores,

many things are fashioned,

gasoline runs the engines

designed to foster and prolong convenience,

to feed the insatiable progress machine.

 

From the fuel that was earth's bounty,

wondrous polymers are constructed,

molded in myriad forms to

shape our insatiable indulgence.

 

From wild and exuberant beginnings,

the creatures that call themselves human

have created an elaborate reality

that has removed them so completely

from their origins that

the future is dying.

 

Magnificent creatures that

remind us of the wildness of the world

we once had,

disappearing from earth's diminished bounty.

 

Polar Bears drowning

ice no longer able to

sustain them.

 

Tigers and Rhinos and Elephants

slaughtered to near extinction

to satisfy ancient superstitions and

feed the endless lure of profit.

 

Zoos destined to be their

final habitat.

 

The insatiable human penchant

for order and dominion

wrecks havoc upon this hapless planet.

 

Once wholesome air

now populated with

noxious chemicals

too numerous to catalog

turn lungs into black parchment and

suffer the children.

 

Water is no longer considered sacred

squandered by abuse,

bottled water now the norm
fresh water no longer trusted,

fire retardant resident in

mother's milk.

 

Oceans, pity the oceans

the fate of coral, uncertain,

denizens of the ocean depths

depleted by the extravagance

of human folly.

 

Humans, an unfinished species

seem incapable of learning

from a history of profound mistakes,

too inured to the machinations of

the lower brain,

too bridled by emotions,

too wedded to the

shallow dimensions of self.

 


What does the future hold for

creatures so immersed in

paths of self-deceit and

mindless destruction.

 

What gruesome future

will unfold if

we do not take hold of the present and

transform it to something

hopeful and transcendent.

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