Monday, February 28, 2011

Forever Responsible

[image from icicp.blogspot.com]

[written for a prompt from Real Toads :
a quote from The Little Prince, as quoted below]

In the Old Ways,
they believed
that every choice,
every decision,
every taking of
the earth's resources,
or reverent consumption
of a wild animal,
had to be
sustainable,
for each decision
affected
their children
and their children's children,
unto the seventh
generation.

Now,
talking heads,
suits in executive boardrooms
across the planet,
fat cats,
CEO's,
glad-handers
and slimy
profiteers,
make decisions
based on
their Bottom Line
(which is money,
and
always and only
money):
"As long as
I get mine, Jack,
I don't really care
about you."

The multinationals 
are raping and pillaging
the planet
as fast as
is humanly possible.
As fast as
the gaping maws
of monster-machines
can grapple
the living trees
off the sides
of mountains,
and truck them
away
to
Somewhere Else,
as fast as
driftnets can
stuff themselves
with a mile or so
at a time 
of the ocean's store,
like giant vacuums
across the
ocean's floor,
as fast as
huge tracts
of wilderness
can be burned,
the machines,
the trucks,
the boats,
just
keep on coming,
and taking away
everything
that humans
hold
most dear.

Wave goodbye:
to every good
and beautiful thing
this earth gave us.
To such
abundance,
Wave
-forever?-
goodbye.

They are
hurriedly
trying to
Get Theirs
before
global consciousness
- or Mother Earth
Herself -
reaches
the breaking point,
and rises up
to stop
the slaughter
of the earth's resources,
its wild places,
its wildlife,
its very lungs
(the vanishing forests
that
produce
the air we breathe).

Meanwhile,
the surface
of the earth
is heating up.
Meanwhile,
the polar ice caps
are
swiftly melting.
Meanwhile,
whales are dying
along the coast;
in the forests
and jungles
of
this ravaged
earth,
species are disappearing
faster in
the last fifty years
than has ever
happened before
in recorded history.

The CEO's
may be in denial
that
this will ever
affect them.

And maybe
it won't.

But it will
definitely
affect
their great-grandchildren,
and those children's
children.

Sadly,
it will also
affect
yours and mine,
and every feathered
and furry beast
that shares
this planet
with us
and our
exponential greed.

For
"You become
responsible, forever,
for what you have tamed*."

*quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

8 comments:

  1. Living in Vancouver, you must be very aware of the natural beauty that could be lost...

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  2. oh yes!! the world we wreck more and more each year, decisions being made by those who do not care! well expressed views here!! nice!

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  3. Sherry, there is so much we can lose and
    for our children, too.

    Pamela

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  4. A wonderful take on the prompt, Sherry...the first verse is heartbreaking when compared with how far we have strayed from any true sustainability! Perhaps it's time we realize we've tamed nothing - nor is it our place to do so. We must adjust to the natural world, not it to us.

    Well said, Sherry...

    Lynette

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  5. Well. Well. So nicely said. Thank You all and with Best Wishes.

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  6. Powerful and beautifully said Sherry, a perfect use for the quote.

    So heartbreaking too.

    The general population feel they have no recourse, no way to stop it. But if everyone on mass stopped consuming the things that gave them (the fat cats) money, that caused them to do what they do, they would have no market.

    They do it because it is profitable, it is only profitable if they have customers and consumers, they go where money is to be made.

    Money can't be made if no one buys.

    Unfortunately the average person is so far removed from the source of their lifesyle, and the havoc and destruction that are the by product of the demands of the modern lifestyle, I can't see this happening.

    Of course mother nature could wipe us all out in moments if she so chose - and to achieve homeostasis, to re establish her balance. . . it may be her only option.

    Oooh, sorry to have turned this comment into a rant! please accept my apologies.

    x

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  7. Such a strong message Sherry, and one so close to my heart. Fantastic response to the prompt.

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  8. Wonderful poem it speaks volumes of what is happening every day. It saddens me to see the suffering of Earth and it's people.
    Greed had gone on for centuries, chemicals, pollution. Our resources abused...
    You did an AMAZING JOB on this one~xXx

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