Looking in on my children
As they lie still in dreams,
I contemplate the future,
Our World, this wasteland.
What frenzied scathing scenes
Dot my unsettled mind, knowing
What might, and will be theirs
To inherit, within the blink of an eye.

I taste a salty tear as it tumbles
Down my face. I am reminded
Of Poseidon’s polluted oceans
Dying all about him. In aversion
He hurls his trident hurricanes
Onto our already over swollen shores.
Perhaps it is his attempt to awaken
Us from our sleepy indifference.

As I step past my long ivy
Withering on the vine, its apparent
Need for nourishment gives me pause.
I reflect on the ravished land
For which we were given stewardship.
The Greenman must be rife with anger.
His once vast expanse of flora and fauna
Is now reduced to Cattle ranges
And suburban sprawls overextended
With endless strip malls.
His greenery wilts while
We place plastic plants as
Decorations in his absence.
He knows that the holes we cut
In the ozone will in short time
Resign our blind conquest.
He will reduce us akin to animals,
Canopied beneath layered
Soil and foliage, again
As his subjects.

After stoking the settling fireplace
I slide close to my love and companion.
With her slight smirk, my mind meanders
To the native Raven who brought us flames.
What an impish laugh he must be having
On our behalf. This trickster deity
Who handed humans dominion
To our own wanton destruction.
How he must relish the havoc
We’ve made by accelerating the atom.
What once was a tool is now tandem
To terror, on a worldwide stage.
Now all watch and await
The final hand to be played.

Just after waking we sit as a family
Eating breakfast around our kitchen table.
I excuse myself to raise up the window.
As the fresh air flows in I grow introspective.
Appreciation is placed toward Prana
For his vital impartation. On this clear
And quiet Sunday morn, the only sound
Is that of a bird, a bug, or a frog.
Yet I know while here, held secure,
With the breath of life, there are multitudes
Who choke on smoke and gasp
For a chance to pull in cool clean air.
“Has Shu been removed from her post?,”
I angrily ask from somewhere within.

Like Job in uncertain times, I try
To understand the way of God,
In an attempt to justify this grand design.
If ever there where an hour for
Mercies’ might, the hour is now.
My prayer is clear, as I ask with a humble heart.
May our children’s tomorrow be better and brighter.
Give them the gift of your divine guidance,
And forgive us our insolence,
While at play in the fields of the Lord.