Apologia to Earth [Today's News Poem, Feb 9, 2010]
“The extent of agricultural waste could prove a more intractable problem than the many factories dumping effluent into China’s rivers and lakes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/asia/10pollute.html?hp
We're flattered, why aren't you flattered
By farms of fish, of beasts—our grain?
We live! Extinction has battered
Our cousins not us. It's our brain
That raised us here: now death cannot
Usurp our rule, as once before.
We've claimed the soil—what we allot
Are gleanings. Otherwise, ignore
Our flaming rivers, filth-soaked bays
Of condoms, diapers: residue
Of hardy reproductive ways.
Don't mind the current trash we spew,
We're bound for better lands than here.
We're reaching star-ward—we'll be gone
And trade our colonies of fear
On earth for the Olympus Mons.
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