The Broken Sky
If only we could release our yesterdays
undo what we’ve done, abandon fossil fuel– now–
listen to our ancestors, to our children
before the flood, the fire, the broken sky.
Oxygen kisses carbon, ignites, forges
a tight embrace – covalent double bonds–
parts per million increasing–climate
change our conversation, but what of action?
Meat, meat, eat less meat, cattle fed
on grain, on soy, or where grasses grow
when rain forests burn to the ground–
the fire, the flood, the broken sky.
If only we’d learnt sooner how to convert
sunshine, patterns of prevailing winds
to electric – no chance yet of nuclear fusion–
but change imperative, as glaciers render
to streams, to rivers, lift the level of oceans,
yet the game goes on, play continues,
growing populations, demand more, and more
before the flood, the fire, the broken sky.
Our footprint, buys the destruction of mahogany, teak,
the slaughter of species–a sixth mass extinction
while indigenous tribes barely leave an imprint on the forest floor,
our story told in tree rings, ice cores, fossil pollen, coral–
conference after conference – if only targets would deliver–
our debt to life may cost the Earth–Gaia critical–
tribal voices cry out so loud angels weep–
today the flood, the fire, the broken sky.
Author: Steve Walter
Photo: Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash
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