The Reluctant Judgment of Gaia

For three transgressions of humankind, and for four,

    I would not turn away my care, 

but I cannot cancel your karma 

    nor soften your self-affliction, 

for you sold a species for silver –

    parakeets for feather hats, 

rhino horns for hangover pills; 

    you carved tusks and called it art. 

You gutted the mountains for copper, 

    cut forests for paper cups, 

pillaged the living hills for coal 

    and filled the hollows with scree. 

You scoured the earth for baubles and gems, 

    plowed and fenced the bison plains, 

encroached on the home of the mountain gorilla, 

    and poached the lands of the poor. 

You drained the ancient aquifers 

     to till the edges of deserts; 

you pimped your crops with exotic genes 

    and sowed the soil with poison. 

You fattened your cattle in pits of filth, 

    your pigs in seething pens. 

You stuffed their guts with feed and drugs 

    and drained their blood for meat. 

From drippings and stench to kitchens, 

    a grim resistance awakes.

Soon a mutant strain breaks free 

    and mean fevers sweep the globe. 

You who live in the riches of Babylon 

    flush in the soaring of stocks, 

forever whoring your mother for more –

    for you, the fire, the plague, the drought. 

Guard your hearts, you orphans of Eden – 

    a vicious spirit inflicts the earth 

and you are the conflagration. 

    Ashes of continents curse your kind. 

Yet oh how I’d gather you back in my garden 

    and wash away your pain. 

I would nurture my bright-eyed progeny 

    but you, beloved, you would not.

SARS-Cov-2 illustration
created at the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention)