Carried On the Wind - Bob O'Hearn

[Larry Robinson]

Carried On the Wind

Some of us suspect that the wind carries messages,
though their meanings are not always easy to decipher.
Like  <>the other animals, we once understood immediately,
but then we became proud and went mostly deaf, and now
require poets, mystics, and physicists to explain.
We still aren't sure if that airborne mail comes from gods 
or science -- maybe there's really no difference in the end.
Just so, the writer is out sniffing the breeze, then hurries in
to write it all down before he forgets what it showed him.
There are noxious fumes rising from the machines,
while lifeforms collapse in slow motion around them.
Great clouds of toxic smoke regularly encircle the globe
so that humans can revel in the dubious joys of palm oil.
The wind makes no judgment, it is just the messenger.
When the great glaciers melt to reveal bare rock, 
you still won't hear the wind complain. 
Come floods or famines, rising temps or longer droughts,
climate warnings or denials, the wind will carry on the same.
Crowds of deformed fish are afloat on the ocean's surface, 
their bellies exposed to an indifferent sky, the stench 
so revolting that not even hungry predator birds
will dare swoop down for a meal.
Those aquatic dead bob aimlessly on the tides, sharing 
the fouled water with miles of oil slicks and floating 
plastic refuse -- the ominous signs of advanced civilization.
The wind will share all this and more, but how much more
can we bear to hear? It seems we've not yet heard enough,
but for those who do have the ears to hear, the message 
should be loud and clear: unless we turn this ship 
around, the wind will continue but we may not.

	- Bob O'Hearn

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