Nature’s pillars, which have borne Earth’s breath for ages,
Are now crumbling into dust… Still, more keep falling,
Shattered by our storm of wants, as outer changes
Echo those inside us, stirred by ‘progress’ calling.
Man-made streams of poison look like serpents crawling
Towards the oceans’ hidden realms of life. What ‘illness’
Could spread more death’s numbing chill to all we’re trawling?
Yet, our unconcern reflects the same cold stillness…
Dread befalls the lands where tyrants burst in shrillness,
Launching threats to set ablaze the free world’s beacons –
Bombs send shockwaves through the earth and deep within us.
Man’s long bond with nature, nay, with Hist’ry weakens…
Every ounce of life may hide a sea of suff’ring –
Why add more? Can’t we, for Earth, make ruth our off’ring?
Daniel Magdalen is a graduate student in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bucharest, in Romania.
That last rhyme is truly strained! But I like this poem and the idea that what is happening to the world externally is no more than a revelation of what is happening within us all: our thoughts are generating a reality which just so happens to be a nightmare. Well done – a fascinating poem.
Thank you for pointing out both good and bad aspects of the text. I admit that the last rhyme is rather strained. However, I couldn’t come up with a better one at the time, so there it is. As for the idea, I think there is, indeed, a sort of continuous influence between our inner attitudes and goals and the outer world.
We are headed towards environmental catastrophe, and poems such as your own add to the testimony when future generations look to us and damn us when they ask ‘knowing all that you did, what had they done to inherently deserve such stupidity by our current age’? Poems of conscience, like this need to be encouraged. Well done and thank you.
Thank you very much. Indeed, I wanted to somehow contribute in a creative manner to the process of raising awareness about this problem which, directly or indirectly, affects us all.