By the Wayside
A poem by Michael Hawkes
We will have to relinquish our grip on the lever,
Dear mother is sick and running a fever,
Her innards are churning, her temples are burning
We must stop here and now and hope she revives.
But she needs our attention with heartfelt intentions
If she is to live and we to survive.
She needs more than a band-aid or bandage and plaster,
She needs to be nursed, her health’s a disaster;
And it’s we her flower children who made her so ill,
And while watching her suffer we’re wounding her still…
Our good intentions come to naught.
Absolutely nothing at all.
She staggers and stumbles, whole systems fail,
Oceans run up rivers, mountain tops fall.
Inordinate efforts… to no avail.
Drink up my hearties. This is the “Last Call”.
9/1/24 – Hawkes
Feature image: IslandHopper, Pexels
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[/col][col size=”10″]Michael Hawkes is a survivor of all the world’s wars. He learned (and loved to rhyme) by torturing the hymns he had to sing at school. A retired West Coast fisherman living in Montreal since 2013, he is an unschooled Grandpa Moses writing an average of five poems every week.[/col][/row]
A chilling reminder that Mother Earth is about to go on life support; Michael Hawkes has succinctly led us to look in the mirror. Will we see ourselves there, or will we continue to blame the “guilty” ones whose products we are only too happy to own?