"Everyday in every way I’m getting better and better" - Emile Coue
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
silence is not the answer
If our grandchildren asked of us
Where are the polar bears & lions
And the bison, elephant & caribou
On the plains of red dust
Our leather shoes shiny as sun
What do we say?
If our grandchildren asked of us
Where is the ocean of whales
And mountains with green firs & oak
The blue lake with whooping crane
carefully threading for her catch
What do we say?
We ride along in our new cars
counting loyalty points, likes & followers
We have no seeds to burrow
only garbage & tons of cheap clothes
We ply away this blue & serene sky
for plastic, smoke & towering condos
If our grandchildren asked of us
Why we are gifting them a dying planet
Will we hear the birdsongs, hoots and grunts
from long lost creatures
and recall the smell of freshly picked apples?
What do we say?
Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - On Climate Crisis hosted by Anmol (alias HA).
For more information, see link here: Climate Change, What can you do
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Goosebumps as there is no answer without weeping.
ReplyDeleteI guess the only thing we will be able to do in the future is to show them photos of nature on our smart phones!! How sad indeed!! Great poem Grace!
ReplyDeleteThe detail in this is beautiful. all that amazing stuff, and we sit on our smartphones looking at videos of idiots. Just looking out of my window I can see a dozen small miracles.
ReplyDeleteGood question, Grace! Do we have enough time to come up with something before our grandchildren start asking questions? Many who are old enough are asking them already and the arrogant powers that be are ignoring them. It could be that we will be taking animals, plants, views, memories of the Earth, to the grave with us. All that will be left for future generations is a record or what everything looked and sounded like, but no tastes, smells or sense of how they felt, the motions they evoked.
ReplyDeleteDisney will show them the new Lion King film.
ReplyDeleteSuch a powerful question, Grace! And the way you have worded it is so eloquent — your title says it all: "silence is not the answer".
ReplyDelete"We ride along in our new cars/counting loyalty points, likes & followers": That is such an apt description of this modern lifestyle.
we are leaving them ash ~
ReplyDeleteThese rhetorical questions make me sad. Sadly, silence will be all that remains.
ReplyDeleteStunning. I love how you broke to the reality of our selfish ways in the third paragraph and returned to the grandchildren's question....one that should make us hang our heads in shame. I truly believed we've let technology and greed evolve us into oblivion.
ReplyDelete