Extinction

our children need to know what we have done

they need to learn about our deadly greed

and know in their blood and bones that

living alongside wildlife is the only way

into the future that

studying the ecology of slugs may save the planet

and that facing hatred, greed and delusion is the big deal

*

we’re all in the shit if we don’t tell ’em now

*

if all invertebrates

disappeared

homo sapiens

would

become

extinct

if homo sapiens

became

extinct

all

life

would

fucking

flourish

*

our children need to know what we have done

Darwin’s Frogs no longer leap in the shrinking wetlands of Chile

the Formosan Clouded Leopard no longer hunts in the mountains of Taiwan

the Sri Lankan Spiny Eel no longer swims in the rivers of Sri Lanka

the Eskimo Curlew no longer calls over the snowy grasslands of Greenland

the Santa Cruz Pupfish is extinct kaput

the Western Black Rhinoceros no longer trundles across African plains

the Angel Shark no longer swims in the Black Sea

the Crescent Nail-Tailed Wallaby no longer lopes across the Australian Outback

the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox no longer gorges on figs in the forest of Panay

Pallas’s Cormorant no longer goes fishing in the polluted rivers or toxic lakes of Russia

the Labrador Duck is extinct       dead as a Dodo

the Javan Lapwing no longer flaps its wings in Indonesian skies

the Tahiti Sandpiper no longer plaintively pipes on the river banks of Tahiti

even our house sparrows are in the shit

*

there’s no time for complacency

the bottom’s fallen out of the ground

forget your satanic gun culture

don’t deny that you deny climate change

take your foul mouth some place else

(such as the asteroid belt) where you can do less harm

if you’ve never seen the devil look in a mirror

don’t pretend you can’t see         our children

need to know what we’ve done      what we’re doing

*

don’t give them the legacy of our single vision

smell the earth, wake up, hear the cries

now         this is what we are doing

 

*

Note: It is frightening but true: Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals — the sixth wave of extinctions in the past half-billion years. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day . It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century.

Centre For Biological Diversity