Tuesday 24 July 2018

Price Unpaid (July 24, 2018)

Cancerous tumour
Growth visible
Consuming everything.

Once
Healthy green
From outer space
Transformed
Sickly diseased brown
Scarring the land.

Islands of floating waste
Litter the high seas
Washing ashore
With little consequences
For those responsible.

Very air
We breathe
Grotesque yellow haze
Physically taste and see
Once odourless and clear
Burning hydrocarbons
For heating and cooking.

Like the canary
In a coal mine
Various wildlife species
Dead and extinct
With global warming.

Destroying the lungs
Humanity's haste
For the perfect view
Wetlands become
Concrete-steel canyons.

Still
Culture of denial
Thrives and grows
Highest level
Willfully ignorant.

What price
Do we willingly pay
Destroying this planet
In our greed?

Remember
Extinction is forever.

Although
Planet will revive
With enough time
Without us.

Therisa © 2018

Author’s note: A poem for Poets United’s midweek motif writing prompt: wilderness.

6 comments:

annell4 said...

Yes, what we have done is not a pretty picture. Oh well we do have people in leadership who are scraping up to the edge, in a hurry. Who needs clean air, clean water, a place to sleep, and food to eat?

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Your last stanza gives hope. They say wildlife is flourishing in Chernobyl now humans have left. That will be the way of the planet once we have destroyed ourselves. Sigh.

rallentanda said...

I agree the destruction of the planet is inevitable considering the present policies.Mammon and the dark forces rule.

Thotpurge said...

Without us..being the key! A terribly destructive human species!

Sumana Roy said...

Oh humans are such pests! May they vanish soon.

Amber said...

Humans are incredibly destructive, a virus. Here in Sweden we are very much feeling the effects of global warming and how anyone can continue to deny that global warming is an issue I don't know. My only assumption is that the people in power don't care because they aren't the ones suffering the consequences, they are completely removed from reality

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