Message from Mother Earth

I woke to feel no breath, as if at birth,
so I could hear the breath of Mother Earth.
She heaves with sighs of lives foregone,
reminding us we need to change our song,
review the wiles of new invented ways,
trying to persuade us of the days
that technological control had won.
At peril, ignore the words of those who’ve gone.

If you reinvent the wheel each day,
immunise yourself to change, betray
the days when unencumbered views were so
much clearer, simpler, more humane than now.
Actions of our past have brought us here
so, whilst the need for redesign is clear,
let’s not allow the ego arrogant
beguile us with its human hubris cant.

© 2011 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary on this poem)