If we are all to die
the cornfields left quite cornless
the wheat-fields, withered, dry
the oceans without fishes
the waterline too high
if we too are just drifters
we are subject to the tides
can be drowned beneath the waters
as tempers and temperatures rise
if we are to go under
then first let’s reach the skies
let us bathe in truest moonlight
hear the sweetest lullabies
let us drift in currents wondrous
let us dance together tight
let us say we won’t go quietly
let us say we lived our lives
but in the noise still listen
still learn to read the signs
still stop to think and keep our heads
heed the worries of the night
stop to listen to our children
because they are getting wise
we said they were the future
they've seen right through that lie
we said children are the future
so let us, please, just try!
to understand that we are
as much the free, as much the truly wild
as fishes in the waters
as birds on brilliant skies
as mushrooms blooming nightly
as winging butterflies
as great old eucalyptus
as flower, stem, and vine
and let us please remember
that we are all to die
and children are the future
please let us only try!
to leave the oceans cleaner
to leave the jungles high
to leave the doorways open
to leave the windows wide
let us read the books and write them
keep true memory live
let us hope that there’s forgiveness
that there’s an afterlife
let us hope some higher spirit
has kindness on its mind
hope we haven’t quite lost contact
lost grip, lost voice, lost sight
when we forgot that we’re earth’s children
we lost our power, lost our right
to tell the future’s children
that we know better than the light
know why it breaks in early morning
better than the night-stars bright
that we know better than this planet
because we have our satellites
have worlds here in our pockets
have access day and night
to endless lies or knowledge
to living byte-by-byte
we’ve forgotten it’s not normal
to find love by swiping right
forgotten how to speak the truth
without hatred, without spite
forgotten fear begets regret
fosters war, and famine, flight
forgotten that we all are one
that we needn’t take a side
we needn’t call each other, other
choose only left or right
we needn’t think we are alone
needn’t think in terms of might
then maybe, only maybe
we’ll find safety in the golden flickered light
of fire and easy company
find what our DNA desires
find common pain, and common scars
from common wounds of life
and from those bonds, build something
that makes our time worthwhile.
Tag: death
Scattered.
The child of free education and no war, a working-man’s grandchild, trussed up in an expensive education and still no war and you choose not to eat and you call yourself oppressed. Are we not always oppressed? Is that not the essence of the human condition — some eternal struggle against the next odds? From hunt and gather to the roller-coaster of capitalism, a train of twists and turns, myths of gold and myths of oil and handshakes and photographs in suits (such are promises), rattling across the globe, faster, faster, faster, faster, flashing faster than the we of the world can possibly see until the train has long passed through and the lessons of history are too slow — too slow, too slow — to catch the crackle of the present as it breaks. And we have all been spread — scattered, like seed — across the earth, human capital shifted in great waves of migration and tireless trickles of restless endless voyaging. Shifted on the waves, on slave-ships and convict-ships and passenger ships and aeroplanes, shifted and drifted, distant, and diffused. Scattered, like seed, wildflowers across the earth, with our beauty — latent, potent, laden, gone — and our memory — latent, potent, laden, gone — and our books. And the web of the spider spins around us, silently, slowly, weaving its soft silver sinews, miles and miles of twists, of cables, woven not from silk but fibre-optics, underground and under seas, great clusters of neurons shooting across the globe so that mother in Taiwan sees her child in Atlanta and all the gripping webs around the globe grow tighter and the silk knots we seek to loosen only distract us from the tighter tightening ever-tighter grip and the bright lights dazzle our senses. We are scattered — ashes on the wind, like seed — wildflowers across the earth, clinging to soil like weeds in the cracks of the pavements and the walls and the concrete and the shards of metal and glass we call homes. We flower and fluster and die — ashes on the wind, more dust on the city streets. More earth to turn and seeds — newly scattered, ashes, fed pesticides and painkillers — left to flower and fluster and die.
Magical: Day One 