A Poem for Gaia
Her Greatest Regret
Humanity has taken its final leave
absconding from this place
with nary a whisper of nous scattering
like a wainscot of blind moths
clinging perhaps to instinct
searching for a cooler, more temperate sun
somewhere over a new horizon in a galaxy
we’ve yet to ruin—
Into the abhorred vacuum behind us moves
the memory of something tight and coarse
wrapping itself around our leaden hearts
like a burlap sheaf covering the earthen ball
of uprooted trees we’d stolen from the sacred forests
to peddle to the filthy rich staking claim to
false virtues and towering apartments on Park Avenue.
Planted in concrete instinctively their roots
seek the core of life driven
further and further down
to Gaia’s giving heart. Heads bowed
we can hardly bear the shame
juxtaposing our destruction and dreams
with hypocritical cries for justice
as we bulldoze the benevolent bounty
gracefully laid at our feet. Too late, She recognizes
the belligerence of our hubris, what thugs we could be
smelted and tempered with the fire of arrogance
only the willfully ignorant could possess;
thus her children have won Her greatest regret —
Over fertile valleys and deserts once strode
the sandle-footed prophet carefully pacing
the will of a misguided flock, troubled forbode
He heard Her desperate plea, and joined Her cause
beseeching the heavens
‘Forgive them for they know not what they do.’
in the hope that all would not be lost.
©Sandy Knight, 2020. All Rights Reserved
