The Ebb & Flow of Virtue

Birth of Darkness

I loved the wind's soft caress
upon my cheek as the wilderness
hushed the creatures to fall asleep.
The moon painted violets and blues across
the vastness of the sky's canvas,
and the trees stretched their arms
and waved shyly to the mountains.
The mountains, with their strong, arched backs,
stood proudly over the countryside as they bid them all a goodnight.
The ocean's torrents pushed and pulled against the sands,
an act of reassurement
that washed away their grief and sorrow
into the infinite depths of the sea.

At dawn, the sun's autumn rays tenderly kissed
the valleys at the horizon
and moved across the prairies in an attempt
to wake the land from her peaceful sleep.
But when the light shone directly upon the earth
like a warm lantern's glow, 
the universe saw that everything was gone.
The ocean's bath had dried up,
a pit of dirt of where the ocean's children used to swim. 
Nature's fields were grey and barren,
her mountains broken and splintered,
her forests mutilated and abandoned,
her skies drowning in grey smoke.
Nature was dead because of humankind.

We, as humans, will bring on the end of the world.
Do our hands heal and help
or are they tools for destruction?
Do we speak words of kindness and truth
or are they used for hate and deceit?
We take and take from the earth,
our humbled mother,
and our creations are melded from a
desire to control,
to conquer,
to overpower -
our greed and our ignorance
is eating up the vividness of the world
and leaving a dark void after our consumption.

Now the clouds are crying thick tears.
The lightning is quivering in fear,
and the thunder's drums are raging against the sky.
The river's pulse is fading,
while the eyes of the stars are dimming
and hidden under thick smog.
The world is of muted colors;
the opaque embrace of fumes and chemicals
have replaced the air that we breathe.
Yet corporations don't seem to smell
the foul odor that our animals,
our earth,
our children
are suffocating in.

Can't you hear her winds screaming?
Hear the cries of mother nature
as her roots are degrading and
her hands so calloused they bleed?
Wake up
from your deep slumber,
which has sheltered you from truly seeing
the evil and cruelty of this world,
and act.
Because the earth's foundations are collapsing from beneath us,
the invisible force in the sky that we pray to has not answered us,
and our authorities drown in their riches and ignore us -
So it is up to our youth to save us from ourselves.

I loved the wind's soft caress
upon my cheek as the wilderness
hushed the creatures to fall asleep.
And as the stars closed their sleepy eyes
and the oceans yawned
and the trees stretched their limbs
and the mountains bid everyone a goodnight -
The darkness was birthing the greed and hate of humankind.