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."