POEM: What Cannot Be Forest Upon Mother Nature

What Cannot Be Forest Upon Mother Nature

As man expired
His last
Once agin
Mother Nature breathed in
A parent excrement
Concrete and steel
Leaving not
Even a scratch
In geologic time
Merely having caught a cold
Cold virus
Feverish bout
Something to sneeze about
Un-till returning
To natural appetites
Where awe is better than knew
In the tree of knowledge
With wisdom of what can and cannot be forest
Upon Mother Nature

Ultimately, this poem is a testament to the sustaining and healing power of Mother Nature. So many times I am struck by the unsustainable practices of so-called civilization. While I am not confident that humankind (unkind?) will be able to avert a monumental collapse of civilization as we know it today, I suspect that humans will survive in some form. Similarly, I strongly suspect than nature will survive. I suspect that humans are not smart enough, nor stupid enough, to end life on this planet. I suspect that humans are not strong enough, nor weak enough, to end life on this planet. While our blind greed is frighteningly persistent, this poem is one vision of Mother Nature, quite naturally, recovering from a virus and fever, and returning to health. Mother Nature is awesome and powerful. In this envisioned scenario, humans don’t make it, at least not in any form resembling our current civilization. In the first line of the poem, I reference the word “man” as expiring, that is, lowercase man, not humankind. I snuck this in as an opening to survive, if in fact, in the yin and yang of life, the patriarchal male force is brought into balance with the nurturing/healing female force. I don’t think that it is any accident that nature, Mother Nature, is typically viewed as female across many human cultures. If we don’t respect females, then we are doomed to an existence far short of our awesome potential, or, perhaps, simply doomed to extinction. May we as a species, one among many, find a balance befitting the awesome benevolence of Mother Nature.