GAIA SPEAKS

found at patheos.com - artist unknown

I once was pure,

but then you came in millions.

I watched you rip and tear 

at my bounty,

ravage my pristine hillsides,

frack my innards,

melt the polar icecaps, 

and reconfigure the sky.

Your  nuclear plants leak poison;

your underground "tests" destroy;

you fill all bodies of water with effluent;

your love of beef and oil

is filling the air you breathe 

with noxious fumes;

and your love of money 

is so desperate 

that you would gasp your last

in the grasping of it.

Now, if I shed tears,

will they be acid rain?

And if I smile a golden sun at you

will it burn up the desert?

If my unsettled spirit 

unleashes a mighty wind,

and covers your shores with mighty tides,

can you see how you have provoked

the winds?

how you have flooded the shores?

You have tied my hands

so that I dare not even weep.

Burdened me with grief profound

for the fateful promises

I must keep.

But still I advise, 

as hopefully

as only a mother can:

mend your ways,

or I must return

to how I was

when I began.

Posted for Kerry's cool prompt at Real Toads: to write in the first person of a god or goddess, as if she is contemplating life in the present era. Something I often think about. I chose Gaia, the Goddess or personification of Earth in Greek mythology.