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