GOOD RIDDANCE
The Earth holds no opinions
or if it does, it keeps them to itself;
and we're the devil's minions
hellbent on ruining its health.
But if the world once found its voice
what would it have to say about its guests?
What would it do, had it the choice?
Would it consider us mere pests,
only here for the briefest while;
would it shrug its shoulders and bide its time;
or would it damn us all as vile,
and call our selfish vice a crime
in having taken for our own
its oceans, forests, steppes and atmosphere,
where countless birds through time have flown,
where fish once swam on currents clear,
where evolution smoothly ran
as nature's panoply of creatures throve;
where, ever since all life began
beneath the waves and high above,
the complex web of life endured?
What would that lasting condemnation be?
Would thus extinction be assured
for human life, for you and me?
Perhaps - who knows? - our fate is writ:
perhaps nature has finally spoken
and decided, not to acquit
but have us, tested and broken,
extinct ourselves once and for all,
and for blind hubris' sake let suicide
be the instrument of our Fall.
Perhaps - who knows? - the hapless tide
of human life is ebbing out,
already damned by its own ignorance,
already doomed, without a doubt,
without the slightest hope or chance
of flowing back. Perhaps - who knows? -
if the Earth could speak, it would look askance
at all we've done, then thumb its nose
and sigh, "well, good fucking riddance."