I understand that the population is outgrowing
our food supply too fast for us to stop
swelling hunger,
so we need to keep the bugs away by spraying chemicals
on Mother Nature’s green face—
poison turning cheeks sallow.
I understand that our energy needs
are ravenous, violent—
violently drawn within violent borders
from dead things in the earth
subject to those borders,
and the wind does not blow fast enough
to win a war.
I understand that we need to protect
the most intelligent species also known as
ourselves,
so the small loss of a golden tree frog
or type of moss is worth the sacrifice
for our progress.
I understand, but
do you understand—
when the fields are wasted,
the food tasteless and grey,
when the fossils are gone,
the wind and sun and acid sea all that’s left,
when the frogs no longer sing between the grasses,
and no more bare feet walk upon forest floors of moss—
we are going to die.
