Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

She told us, she warned us,
repeatedly through story,
through song and finally,
she showed us.

Even with the showing,
we did not listen.
Even when chaos reigned down
on us from above.

When fiery rockets of molten lava
spewed from below.
When oceans rose and deserts disappeared,
still we did not listen.

We forced her hand
and being who she is,
she could not, would not back down.
We became the enemy.

We became the infestation.
We who had been given this paradise
of greenery, of sustenance, of life,
repeated our own history.

We did not garner one single learned moment
from the eons and eons of quiet pleas,
the unheard cries, the high decibel screams
she issued.

The animals could hear, the flowers and the plants
could hear. The mountains, the seas, the deserts
and the trees could hear.
But we could not hear.

We did not hear. We would not hear. Some did.
Some heard and tried to rally around the flowers
and trees. The oceans and deserts,
but they weren’t enough. They were too late.

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