There once was a place
Where seagrass abounded and so much more
As much as can be imagined
There was hot and cold and more
And more than just warm and warmer
Where dolphins could swim but not out swim
Swim beyond their shrinking habitat
The loss was greater every day
And every day the places that were warm but not too warm
Were lost forever like the corals and the fish
And there was less and less
Of places and ways to adapt
The dolphins gave birth to fewer calves
As the oceans birthed fewer places
Where warm wasn’t too warm
And there was much more than could be imagined

There once was a place
Where there were smart and warm-blooded creatures
And there was so much abundance
More than could be imagined
There was much more than more
It all seemed so infinite
And more and more
The warm places grew hotter and hotter
In just a century
The depths turned darker and more lifeless than one could expect
It was all so short and illusive
Hardly anyone could remember
And no one could quite imagine
A world where warm wasn’t too warm
Where there was warm and cold and more
And more than just warm and warmer

There once was a place
Where the turquoise blue waters
Were the home of the whales and the dolphins
And more and more
The waters became too warm
Much too warm for many species
The change robbed the seas of their oxygen
And warmer became even warmer
And more and more
The waters acidified
And the salty currents traveled in different directions
Than had ever before been seen
And the places that weren’t too warm
Became harder to find
As more and more
They became less and less

There was once a place
Where the reefs weren’t bleached white
There were more colors than could be counted
And more beauty than could be described
The oceans were magically protected
Under a fiery sun
Revealing the hues beyond the blues
Overflowing with life
As the ice melted
And the species migrated far to the poles
The kelp disappeared
And the mercury poisoned the shores
More and more
The dolphins could not find a home
More and more
There was less and less

The moon watched over
This place that once was
Holding it in its dreams
The memory of the tallest of all
The giants that roamed Africa
Before the rainy seasons were shortened
And the droughts scorched the land
Less and less
Were the giraffes
More and more
Was the silence
And more than one could imagine
There was a rest that no one would have chosen
And a relentless truth
That as warm became warmer
There was less and less

The stars never asked
And the city lights
Which tried to be as bright
Never answered
Why was all the warmth necessary
When it wasn’t a matter of eloquence
Or a question of survival
Merely a way to do the old things
In a reckless manner
In hopes that one could ignore numbers
And one could deny math
And one could hold back the inevitable
But time had other plans
The scent of the acacia leaves
And the wild apricot trees
Became less and less

There were a few twigs
Here and there
Where giraffes could feed
And extend their days
Given that the rasping dust
Choked the homeland
The winds at night
Made everything seem more immense
As grasslands became small
And the same winds echoed sadness
And on and on
The stories were told
Of how little by little
There was less and less…
And more and more
The giants had nowhere to go

And could we really forget such a face?
Without a language for ambition
Never having wanted anything
Never having taken
Never having asked to be loved
As civilization kept moving
Without ever having understood itself
Or seen the threat in the mirror
That makes no sound
But caused the world to disappear
And the animals to go
And leave us forever
All alone
In an endless universe
Too vast for such solitude
For such loss

Some saw a horizon
The sky reflecting our world
And like a rock garden
Clenching our spirit
One could compare
What was above and below
Beyond the distant twilight
Unseen billions of people
Burning tiny flames
Fearing the cold
As if fear were a love song
This vision spread out across a sunset
Of a little world
Filled with big arguments
And passionate defenses
And critical hearts

Anger burned hot
As science was debated
On gadgets that were made from excessive mining
On devices that were discarded
And thrown into landfills
Overflowing with electronic waste
On these machines
People were unkind
The misled and misinformed
The indecisive and the blind
One could only hope
That the wisdom of the children
Would be enough to turn back time
If only the old would hear the young
And their words wouldn’t disturb them
Not too much

The tree of life
Wept over low lying countries
As the waters rose
And the human voices faded
And all became coastline
And all the secrets that have ever been buried
Were washed out to sea
Forsaken like ancient stories
Forgotten as the things we left behind
We were losing the world
Losing the world
Every leaf and branch
On the tree of life
Lamented
The deluge was the whole of sadness
As the lands receded

Inside the book of mysteries
Through windows of days
In the sound of beating wings
The horizon had no edge
And no departure
And no escape
From melting glaciers
And—oh—did you know?
Heat expands
And so do warm oceans
But facts and wisdom
And knowledge and science
Hadn’t grown tired
Of offering clockwork warnings
As the pages of myths
Seemed to want no world to exist

Just think of another moonrise
Without a mountain gorilla
To witness its glow
Or its crescent glimmer move across the sky
Another evening beginning
Without gentle eyes
To catch a glimpse of night
If the rhythm of the seasons is disturbed
And the bamboo shoots no longer sprout
Because the weather has changed so much
And brought disease
And drought
And loss of land
What is there left to eat?
What is left that’s wild?
Who is left to watch the skies?

And now the humans come too close
In search of mountain water and food
The words, critically endangered
Echo through the forests
As the numbers become so small
The words:
Absence
Extinction
Become like furnaces
In eyes that offer sunflowers
To say goodbye
Because the days are warmer
And the rain doesn’t arrive on time
Absence
Extinction
Heartbreak

A beautiful and wrinkled face
Must sense
That there is an answer out there
Alone with the stars
It must seem
That there is some kind of music without sound
What it must feel to an ape
To listen to the noise of the world
A dying world
And know that it needs to die more slowly
To crawl instead of run
Slower
Slow enough for an ape to know
The dying has stopped
And the tears
Have stopped falling from the heavens

Redemption
The resounding harshness of a dream
That has spilled unto life
That a threadbare hope exists
That a tattered healing can begin
Confessions
That we are jealous of an earlier time
When nature was a dance
And every transcendence
Was delicate and wondrous
And now—what now?
Is there some formulation
Of meaning that undestroys
All that has been destroyed
Is there some magic
Some sunflower for the ape?

There was an unmeasured realm
In the business affairs of men
In a domain that children couldn’t understand
With wealth and power that few could comprehend
They drank the fossil muck from the ground
And sold it for riches
And purchased governments
And dedicated alters to gold
As they pillaged and wrecked the world
With armies of soulless lawyers and their artifices
And well-funded public relation campaigns
They covered the sky in filth
And spread black tar in the tides
As an impractical few
Tried to become leaders
To howl at the unmeasured realm

As more passionate voices were heard
In a raucous baying
They spoke with conviction
Of the least amongst them
Those that were innocent
And least responsible
Yet suffering the most
As their homes were claimed by the oceans
As well as their innocence
At the very bottom of the depths
Their hearts
Their homes
Their futures
Submerged by troubles
They were not rich enough to solve
Because their tiny islands didn’t seem to matter

And there were many
Who spoke as though
They had found love
Adamant that the world could be saved
That the petals of brilliant minds
Could open like astonished eyes
With tenderhearted genius
Having unlocked hidden possibilities
For a sustainable humanity
For tomorrows
And summers
And winters
And pure plans
For ice sheets and glaciers
An inheritance for the Micronesians
And prosperity for all

Yellow city lights
Like ministerial candles
Like water lanterns
Like fireflies
Seen from orbit
Told the story of people
Shrouded in night
Most choosing kindness
And compliance
And despite their broken spirits
Broken by the ruthless and uncaring few
They believed that the world could be saved
From the slime and soot
And the collapse of both day and night
And from all the injustice
Suffered by man and all the animals

The moon glowed brightly in the night sky
Or were they lightning bugs
Spread out like constellations?
Or were they embers
From all our forests
Burning down?
Or were they embers
Consuming all that was ancient
And natural
And sweet and fragile?
A tree stands tall in the midst
Resilient in destruction
The road took us past the tree of life again
In the sky was a reflection of us
There were more lights that looked like embers
Or were they lightning bugs?

Where does this ashen road take us?
Its immortal trajectory seems to know
Like an old person
That has witnessed so much
They no longer have words
The path knows no names
It feels nothing but cracking and crumbling
As days bring record heat waves
It listlessly shrugs and meanders like a river
As fire season lasts a few more months
As forests disappear
As animals gather in cathedrals
Made of dead vegetation
Breathing sacred air
While in the distance
They see what looks like embers

Firebrands
Cinder and ash
Opaque layers of paint
The embers of pine cones
Shingles and wood torn from homes
The wind carries
Torturous pieces
Flaming arrows
Delicate land
Catching it all within its nets
Ravaged amber earth
Once like the doldrum seas
And halcyon woodlands
On a tiny planet spinning in the dark
Its skies covered in cinder and ash
Opaque like layers of paint

On the road to ourselves
Sky mirror
Setting on the horizon
Quivering with warnings
All the silences
Summoning the firmament
The expanse
Separating heaven and earth
A final June
A last chance
A choir of voices
Demand that we turn around
Because the road to ourselves
Is such a road
Where we will find
That our own hearts will condemn us

If we could look up
And see ourselves
Every memory
Every dream
Every aroma
Lifetimes of heartbeats
Hidden loves
And all that we’ve forgotten
And every happiness
Our earth
Home to our species
Territory of our souls
Would we recognize ourselves?
Would we be amazed
That despite our bad manners
Heroic deeds sometimes conquer tragedy?

The embers from the infernos
Let’s call them fireflies instead
Sparks that tell us
Some courage is needed
Flickering with admonitions
Pulsing bewilderment
The lights illuminate
A naked truth
That if we could only see ourselves
Our calling
Our response
Would we change like butterflies?
Move backwards like dragonflies?
Inspire children like fireflies?
If threats became symbols
Would they bring us to our senses?

If stillness could rescue us
And tenderness seduce us
With visions of reason
Lingering in solitude
On a feverish planet
What would we call such a realization?
How would we explain such an awakening?
On a little speck in the blackness
Circling the sun
Carrying tiny hearts
Inside fragile bodies
Blanketed by a delicate atmosphere
Could those that still sleep even hear us
If we told them the truth?
That we’re not so tough
That our world isn’t indestructible

Have you ever been to Kyoto
And seen the cherry blossoms in April?
And did you know about the protocol?
Part one: Global warming exists
Part two: Humans have caused it
Here is how denialism works:
Supplant science advisors with industry experts
And with no great surprise
The big multinationals are up to far worse
With big money and big lies
Fake citizens groups are funded
Fake scientific bodies are compensated
And the disease of denialism spreads
Because it’s too scary to think
That we’re not so tough
That our world isn’t indestructible

Nocturnal creatures
Luminous beetles
Radiant and diminishing
Once plentiful
In our childhood yester-summers
The little night lights
We remember well
Thousands of tiny torches
Like embers that break loose in a firestorm
Filled the evenings
But where are they now?
They seem more like apparitions
Memories
Mental photographs
Stories
Of things that almost don’t exist anymore

Facing extinction
Really?
Yeah really
And a million more plants and animal species
That with great impeccability and purity
Fade away like December
And yester-winter
And timeworn pages
Wisdom turned to dust
Withered notebooks filled with calculations
Venerable activists
Esteemed scientists
Their work discarded
By the mockers and the scoffers
Who don’t believe in math
Or climate averages

And so the last of the fireflies
Brighten with marigold
Chartreuse and honey
They offer to illuminate our evenings
Extending to us a modest glow
Of a provisional book light
Maybe just a hint
That we might be a little more studious
And move beyond angst and fear
To become more audacious
In our search for truth
Sometimes in a few numbers
Or syllables
Charts and diagrams
Young lovers can look at and share
And find some not-so surreptitious meaning

Some call the news sensational
Alarmist
Fear-mongering…
If only it were spin
If only it were opinion
In the wake of the great warming
Biodiversity dissolves away
Upward-sloping graphs
Rising temperature
Rising emissions
Rising sea levels
Downward-sloping graphs
The loss of wildlife
The loss of sea ice
The loss of forests
The dwindling of the firefly

Try to picture
The earth in the sky like a moon
Its phases
Full to crescent
Your skin
covered in Earthlight
Terrestrial rays upon the land
The dark side of the Earth
Fills you with uncertainty
Like a dark house
The phases
Time
You consider all the signs
Families of skies and flowers
Inklings of dew and water
Traces of sons and daughters

Can you picture
In this little sphere
floods and storms
record heat?
The sovereignty of places
Mere symbols of existence
That may or not be places
Once the maps are redrawn
Once the inundation
Covers all we’ve ever known
Once the flames prey upon the empires
Continents and dominions
And once the cyclones
Become gluttonous and wild
What then?
Where will our children sojourn to next?

When you picture the earth
In the sky like a moon
You know it’s more
Than just a rock
It’s an anthology of anthologies
Every life a story
Billions of histories
Unseen dreams
Dramas
Victories
Tragedies
And epic loneliness
Among strangers inhabiting this little globe
Is it too much to ask
That all the good and the bad
Continue a little longer?

As you try to picture
The earth in the sky
Turn to the person next to you
Remind them that God is love
And love is God
And love is the answer
And warn them of the lies
We have been told
By those with no love for the world
Who would want us to believe
That money is God
God is money
And those things are perfectly fine
Greenhouse gases and deforestation
Would never bring us harm

Pushed to the edge
The margins of Australia
Kangaroos and wallaroos and wallabies
Against a mural of alluring yet virulent colors
The fringes of a shoreline
Mark an end to land and country
The embers
Lets call them fireflies
followed them to a rocky coast
The roos
Refugees of the war on nature
Fled to nowhere
Non-existent Sanctuaries
Free of carbon pollution
Kingdoms of myth
Safe from the bushfire crisis

There was nowhere to go
Asylum for none
The incandescence grazed the fields and forests
The mainland fainted
As the vapors danced and brooded
Three billion animals they say
Were harmed
Unfathomable numbers
Unthinkable
Unrepealable
Confused and surrounded
Some were burned
And there were intricate degrees
of much worse
Their eternity
Lost in warrior mist

As the humans watched their homes smolder
They heard animal cries
Heart wrenching sounds
They had never heard before
Shrieks into cracks in the cosmos
Pleading
Beseeching
From the charred landscapes
Utterances beyond language
Creature disseminations
Beastly elucidations
If they could understand the science
If their screams could turn to words
If they could express their discontent
Decarbonize
They might say

The earth looms above
As a device of our minds
We don’t really believe
We are just specks
on a tiny ball
It’s just an abstraction
Beyond concepts
But this is quite real
Man will say
When the wildlife goes away
What were we thinking?
Why the land clearing?
And why did we think that we were immune
From dirty fossil fuels?
Night darkens
The embers brighten

While caring and uncaring man
Jostle and quibble
The conscientious
And their dark shadow counterpart selves
Try to tear out of each other’s hands
Agreements and protocols
To save the world
The environment waits for the next rains
Beds of ash can recover
Vegetation can rejuvenate
There are nutrients in the scorched soil
Seeds to root
Blooming goodness
Restorative wholeness
Possibilities
Hope

The roo and the butterfly
Appear in the fields
Ambassadors for a fledgling future
Relentless in their dedication
To keep the world going
As real-estate developers bulldoze
Land spared by the fires
The roo and the butterfly
Overlook this too
Let’s hope that Dr. Malcolm is correct
And life finds a way
The oil companies have also found a way
And so have the lobbyists
And so have the rising seas
And so has the melting ice
And so have the fires

There was a famous multinational
With groundbreaking scientists
They long ago predicted the climate crisis
And that action had to be quickly taken
But one day
In light of inconvenience
And lack of cost-effectiveness
And because it was counter to profitability
There was a chill
In an executive boardroom
When it was decided
To deny the science
And misinform the public
Easily tempted by short-term riches
With dilapidated hearts, souls and self control
They transgressed and all best intentions unraveled

But to our defense
The threads of garments
Unwound and spilling
Are woven anew
by children
Closer to the womb of creation
With great measureless magic
They take the garbled nonsense
And inventive lies
Stitch together the rags and shreds
Meticulously providing new testimony
To counter
The suborning of perjury
In the court of every earthly observer
The youth will not stand
For the world ending in deceit

The eucalypt forests
Among things that can be repaired
Restored
Reclaimed
Koalas in the haze
Could feed once again
Nibbling on the gum leaves
Finding their lairs
In the forks of branches
High in the canopies
Instead of searching for water
On the ground in gutters
Their food sources drying up
In the burdensome heat
Dying of thirst
This need not be

It was in a video
(I do recall)
Shared by tweets
Retweeted by more
The world burned
And the koalas cried
A chorus of melancholic voices
Gentle creatures
Running from flames
Singed feet and faces
It was at this point
I cried my useless cry
And clutched fruitless despair
What else could I do?
But paint what some people call a koala bear
Unharmed

The oil conglomerate
(There is no need to mention)
Mention their name
They befriended climate denial groups
And created an eco-friendly coalition
That was not friendly at all
The billions poured into campaigns
A crusade to destroy the world
To discredit science
Play up uncertainty
Trumpet fecklessness
Among suits and lawmakers
And the true fake news
It seems as though they have won
But the children are not selfish
They can see through the bluff

A young girl
Once said
If there is action
There is hope
Somewhere in the bushlands
In Southeastern Australia
The koalas spend most of their days sleeping…
In marsupial dreams
Is there an alternate world?
One where the humans
(Who once hunted them for fur)
Take action
And give meaning to hope?
One in which the old
Listen to a young girl
And dream with the koalas?

In Koala dreams
What is there to be seen?
An old earth
or a new earth?
Over crystalline waters
Or a sullied pond of tears?
Would these fjord visions eclipse the sun
Like a crown
A muted lamp
Clamoring and shouting reflections?
Would the visions themselves
Recognize you?
Would angelic koala contemplations
Of dire situations
Reveal a rapid decline in their kind?
Or miraculous escape?

What would a little witness think
Of the waters swelling
Right up to the edge of the world
The land just a little less significant each day?
What would ruminations bring
As the ocean mysteriously rises?
With no understanding
Of too much CO₂
And the ooze they dig out of the ground
Little koala
What would you think?
As you curl up
With your tiny hands and feet
And watch the earth
Become a little less wild
Everyday

Oh land animal
The waters go on for miles
Or is it kilometers?
What measure should we use
To understand this plight?
Would it surprise you
If a dislodged sheet of ice
Came floating your way?
Have you heard
The arctic heat waves
Contort and expand the seas?
Oh furry friend
I’m not sure how all this ends
Perhaps with offshore drilling rigs
dotting the horizon
Or with some wisdom and decency

An overheated koala
Comes down from its tree
In search of moisture
Wrapped in solitude
Rocking back and forth
Lungs coated in smoke
Drinking water out of a bowl
From human hands
Timid yet trusting
A presence that connects us to everything
An encounter with such a beast
And we can taste the stars
And the spirit of the planet
Childlike
Pure
Fragile

We need you
How else can I say it?
You are the pollinator
A prolific fascination
Our crops
Adorned in color and dew
And splendor of being
Are destitute without you
No fruits or seeds
No apples, almonds or nectarines
Well, it’s a very long list
Of all the things we would miss
If you were absent
And there was no hum
Of your diaphanous wings
Or drone of your colonial home

Flights of a ten thousand miles
The females do all the work
Nursing, cleaning
Collecting nectar and pollen
Making the honey
No time for fun
Not in a dazzling matriarchy
Long live the queen
All hail to the empress
What will happen
If the bees disappear?
As the temperatures climb
How will they know when it’s spring
If there is no snow to melt?
How can a matron rule
In this unnatural decline?

Ready for pollination
Came the call from the plants
But the climate patterns
Caused the bees to delay
So much for grapes and clovers
Blueberries and so much more
As the ranges ebb and taper
A place for a hive
Is hard to find
The sun is setting
Setting hard upon the land
The work of the earth
Your burden
Your duty
Calls for you
Excellent bee

Aureolin flyer
Your friends are also in trouble
The other pollinators
Flies and butterflies
Are fading from the universe
Our little world
Seems to be overheating
A trillion lamentations
Can be heard
In the beauty of existence
Nothing can replace
Each landing on a flower
With an expert caress
Gathering pollen
On the precipice of forever
You ride the open perennial petals

Our star sets
In scarlet, violet
And tangerine colors
The big blue rises
Waters lift themselves up
Billowing skyward
In tiny increments
Gradual but significant
For people that have lived on small islands
For thousands of years
The last twenty
Appear close
To washing away their homes
One storm away
From being erased
From the ledgers of history

Our blackness sets
In midnight hues
Of blackened blue
And darkest indigo
Metropolis brilliance
Capitols twinkle
On the night earth
Rolling and turning
Revolving and abandoning
The past
The harmony
It all comes undone
The fabric of existence
Is out of balance
Out of balance
Are our demands upon the earth

The dolphins carry on
Soaring, bowing and breaching
For hours and hours
In waking dreams
The bronze statue
Of the god of the seas
No longer in human memory
And every reverie
And fantasy
Imparting
And Hinting
At the evanescent nature
Of what is brief as rain
As an answered or forgotten prayer
In an unfinished chapter
In the story that ends or begins

Far from radiant city lights
But not far enough
The marine creatures swim
Through warm oceans
Where carbon dioxide has dissolved
And made for an acidic home
Marine life scatters
Migration unfolds
Hawksbill turtles can’t find beaches
To lay eggs
Because the islands aren’t there anymore
The moon of the Maldives
Wonders at the sight
Of little crumbs of island nations
Melting like sugar
Vanishing into the night

Steadfast and unfailing
You’ll notice a singular span
A great succession
Sum of all seasons
One life
Such as the utmost
And the purely present
As well as every single living thing
Parcel out and claim
An inheritance
This grand room we stand in
One air we breathe
One breath we share
With such a commission
Do we dare
confess our love?

One existence
Our whereabouts in the universe
Our residence
Our names written in it
And yet it appears peculiar
And unconventional
Through different eyes
Like many versions
Of the same story
Countless adventures
And experiences
Of the one life
Our brotherhood

And sisterhood
Can we not see
We are one?

Soaking up the fiery sky
The oceans devour CO₂
How does such imbalance
Befall such beauty?
There’s an illusion
We should be aware of
Of a gorgeous and beaming patient
With a terminal diagnosis
Purity
Generosity
And all the ways
Our world gives and gives
As we take
And taint
Perfect balance
With imbalance

The dolphins
The whales
The orangutans in the wild
These are our children
We abide with
Collectively
Mutually
There are of course trials
The contest for survival
Predation and prey
Greed and recklessness
Life is messy
We are bound together
One solitary earthly family
From the bonfire of our disappointments
We can repair this trouble

Sea ice
The essential element
And landless terrain
Of the Polar bear
Alabaster terrace
For pouncing and feeding
The undoing
The tribulation and defeat
of the pale world
Lost in a thaw
The cost of manmade perplexity
And misguided progress
Is the quintessential threat
To the largest of the bear species
The ethereal white
Nanook

Our meager and limited
little nook in the cosmos
Somewhere in a spiral galaxy
Hanging on to a starry branch
Our little world…
Here there are seasons
Ninety-odd-days
And with every whirl around the sun
The ice sheets retreat too soon in the spring
And harden too late in the winter
The days diminish
Polar bears have less time
Less moments to hunt
More hours of hunger
Under the stars
Land of snow and dark waters

Lanky cub-bearers
And tiny cubs
If they survive
Smaller mother and child
Weaker bodies
Lower average weight…
With angular faces
They search the damaged ice ecosystem
Mourning the absence
Of crayfish and crabs
And all that is meat for seals
And if there are no seals
There are no bears
And what then?
A requiem sung
In soundless arctic absurdity?

In a place that should be cold
Warmth has crept in
Bringing corruption and defilement
Contagion and pestilence
The dens cave-in
As the palaces melt
Nurseries for the young
In what should always be winter
Protection is illusive
When warmth doesn’t rest
The invisible cause
Of labyrinthine causes
Is greenhouse gas emissions
Unnecessary thorns
In the stems of human creativity…
Ask the children

Orcas
From the old waters
Titans of the glassy sea
Black and white
The way many view life…
Black like the void of night
White like the polar caps
That radiate heat back into space
Mammoth
Like the ice sheets
That hold back the glaciers
There are giants among us
We live in a time
Of beautiful leviathans
Travelers
To newer waters

Chasing the herring
North—north
How great a distance
Until the fish find new breeding grounds
Cold enough to reproduce…
Warmer waters and the stocks diminish
Acidic waters and the plankton die
What will happen to the animals that feed
On fish and plankton and other things?
And what will happen to larger animals
That feed on the animals that feed
on fish and plankton and other things?
And what will happen to the orcas
As they chase the herring
North—north
A great distance

Inky fins
Slicing through blue waters
Past ice sculptures
Two thousand foot dives
Falling
Rising
Dancing
Motionless
Lifespan as long as men
But with hardly any calves…
The pods are precious
In an illuminated sea
Filled with magnificent mothers
O cetacean heart
What of your children?
What of tomorrow?

O whale
Do you know what the earth looks like
From space?
Everything is small…
You can’t see war or hate
Pandemics or climate change
It’s round like the moon
A spherical sky
Filled with clouds
That’s how I would describe
Ice, land and ocean
And everything all around
O honorable whale
Revered yet hunted
Loved yet uncared for
We live in a prodigal world

Human mother
Holding the future in your arms
Days plucked from dreams
Stirred from fate
Or would you call it destiny?
Millenniums appear
Like breaking waves
What is a century?
And what are the decades?
What is permanence?
All these questions
Flow out like an estuary
Mysterious notions…
With closed eyelids
Fathoming the next generation
And the tiny portion in your arms

May there be no embers
May the forest infernos
Be quelled and fettered
Kept from overtaking the earth
May all our fears
Turn into fireflies and stars
May pain and sorrow
Fade into evening skies
May smoke turn to mist
May the vault of heaven
Turn from hellish orange
To consolatory blue
And all our newborns
Be kept safe and live to see
The metamorphosis of planet and human heart

Such benedictions
Which I have no authority for
And such visions
That tantalize my mind and soul
Some would call Idealism
And self-delusion…
May they go out
Like letters from a monastery
From a lonely monk
To all the lovers in the world
To anyone not sworn to celibacy
Make beautiful angels
Hold them tight
And give them a carbon neutral world
Bequeathed to them
By erring ancestors

There is a wind
Aromatic, imperceptible
And filled with secret life
It splinters and gathers
Coalescing with the tides
Shadowless and pure
It reclaims what has been lost
In heartbreaking happiness
Sometimes old things are restored
And new things are reborn
And so all things are possible…
With hard work
There is hope
Children can chase fireflies
And grow old
If we work hard and save the world