Dehumanizing extractive industries are destroying our environment, second only to climate change. Mining is a huge part of extractive industries’ destruction. And, ironically, the technologies needed for a green economy require immense quantities of minerals that drive the “green, green, green” economy. I wrote this poem a bout mining after viewing a Democracy NOW segment on cobalt mining in the Congo. In one word: brutal. Here is the poem:
Mine, Mine, Mine
Mother Earth weeps
Bleeding minerals
For her children
Germanium, gallium, beryllium, lithium, tellurium
And other -iums
Tag teaming with -isms of all sorts
Piling on cobalt, manganese, arsenic and antimony
And lustly met
With platinum, aluminum, lanthanum, tantalum
And a host of -ums, -ums, and more -ums
Buy corporate fat cats
With their toxic waists
And awe a bout mine, mine, mine
And winning the precious price
Fore cherished electronics
An idol public helled hostage
Buy a green, green, green economy
And down with dumb
In the face of corporate prophets
Mean wile
As Mother Earth bleeds and weeps
Fore the porous of the poor
They get their fare share
Of the F-fluent
Of multinational syndicates
Shareholders and slaveholders
As black as Inc.
A dubious bettor weigh
What more
Could we passably want
In making up
Won’s mine
Rather sow
Another or
Of inestimable worth
Truly living
On a plan it
That is not scarred
In its own
Home
Realizing
Won for all
