The Earth Is Dying - Maya Spector

[Larry Robinson]

The Earth Is Dying

The earth is dying.
We sit in hospice, we few
who are willing 
to bear witness.
People say –
My life is fine,
difficult at times, 
but fine.
The rent gets paid.
There is food in the refrigerator.
The sun rose this morning.

But in my lifetime
half the creatures of the sea
have died.
The plankton is full of plastic.
Turtles eat it and are full
of plastic as well, and sometimes
they are trapped in the plastic islands
filling our heating oceans.
The glaciers are disappearing,
almost before our eyes.

You don’t want to hear this.
I don’t want to hear this.
But how will the children breathe
when the oxygen producers are gone?
How will they live
when there is no clean water to drink?
 
Oh, I will be gone by then,
dead and beyond caring.
But I have children,
and my children have children,
still wide-eyed and excited
by life and possibility.

We are called 
to bear the unbearable.
She is dying, and so
we are dying.
Will you be with Her?
Will you give Her
your tears?

	- Maya Spector