*Death on the Horizon (a poem)

Death on the Horizon

Horizon turns gray

Banishing the black

And so appears the first ray

Sending the stars back

But the light does not shine

On a single river or pine

No- just a forever wasteland

Endless expanse of dusty-dry sand

And from a cold mountain cave appears

A young girl, small for her years

She sits at the very edge

Of the miles-high ledge

About her adventure, no one below knows

The sun climbs higher

Into a sky devoid of ozone

Skeletal bushes around her begin to simmer with fire

She stares at the beauty

Of the great golden orb

It’s the last things she’ll ever see

As her life the heat begins to absorb

Her parents and elders always said

The heat of the sun would burn you dead

There is no longer an atmosphere

To keep its harmful rays from coming near

But her science teacher thought

That anyone who caught

A glimpse of the great sun

Anyone who saw the beauty- would be a lucky one

Her skin breaks out in heavy sweat

As she gazes at the celestial being of bedtime lore

And as she stands there she does not regret

Her curiosity that burned her into no more

The great flaming sphere

Continues up into the sky

Shining on a surface world clear

Of any life or reasons why

Earth’s destruction couldn’t be stopped in time.

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This poem is written for global warming. I know what I have depicted- Earth as a desert wasteland with no atmosphere- is a bit extreme. But the extremes are always possible, and of course, always avoidable. We have waited much too long to realize our wrong doings to our Mother Earth, and now that we have, we are still putting off fixing our wrongs. When it comes to Earth, treat her with respect. She gave us a home, and without her, we would never be.