Luddite

We are murders and suicides all,

patricides and matricides

and insecticides poured down the drain

We kill it or her or him

however we call the Earth

we murder and we rush

like no lemming ever has

down to the burning Sea,

alight with herbicides

and spilled oil

or the gray of oil burned

The Earth dies,

and still we dance,

thinking that $50

given to Greenpeace

will make a difference

What is it that we could do

to save her or it or him, the earth

can we turn off the machines

can we say to those that have not,

that we all must not have

what kills today, and all tomorrows

I have a son, a boy of 13

I cry at night when I think of what he shall face

as the Earth dies, and the seas rise,

and unknown winds scrape the land

he is such a beautiful boy,

and I fear for him

Can we turn off the machines

Will we see the beautiful contrail

not a mark of the primacy of men
but an arching sigil of poison

that must end

If what I fear is true,

then this flattened world

will grow new mountains

in the agonal stresses

of our fall

The tectonics of our failures

leaving death upon death

and again more,

more than we can think

more than we can fear

Mountains will divide us

as we scratch and scramble

for what remains

But the have-nots

will precede the haves

by only a year or a decade or two

From one height to another

voices will call

and perhaps in the strain

some sanities will emerge

too late

much too late

Television is want to show

that some killer meteor

will be our end

taking us off the hook

that we have ourselves nailed to a tree

leaving us to fear what we cannot see

but television is another machine

can we turn the machines off

can we stay our hands from murder

can we stop the rush

who will we call

as grave digger to a world that dies
is God in the Yellow Pages

listed under "divine"

will he or she attend to us

who are parricides

Can we turn off the machines?