Earth Moans

APRIL 11, 2020 BY [email protected]

EARTH MOANS

I wrote this poem on March 14, 2020. The world has not only been turned upside down, but twisted in so many ways, I feel it is trying to tell us something. Of course, we are not listening or are unable to discern what it is exactly trying to say. We are so busy living our lives that we can’t see what is dying around us. This is a study in contemplation when death comes to visit so unexpectedly, it leaves you breathless and breathing in sobs and stutters.

On the 24th of February, my younger sister passed away. Granted, she was 54 yrs old but that is relatively young in comparison to the current life expectancies these days. I’m 62.

That’s neither here nor there, truly, in what I’m getting at. She went into the hospital on a Friday and lasted a week with a little bit of hope that she would recover and be well. Deep down, I think we all were holding out hope like folks always do when the unbearable casts a large shadow across the room. She was in an induced coma to help her recover but she developed a fever and complications and so many tubes and machines doing all the work for her that 10 days later she succumbed to the inevitable, although we didn’t want to face that! Her lungs gave out and her organs begin shutting down as well as our hopes and we finally succumbed, as well, to the unacceptable!

We said our goodbyes and then emerged from our dark family conclave (we squatted in a corner of one them hospital waiting rooms for a week or more) in time to realize there was a pandemic starting to creep its way into the world. As much as I would love to see my family, we have been in isolation like everyone else trying to bring this monster down. And yes, there are questions in my mind whether there was any relation in my sister’s passing and what is going on!

Which brings me to my 2nd portion regarding the butterfly flapping its wings and a hurricane occurs on the opposite side of the world:

Early civilizations called the world Gaia and gave this world all the anthropomorphic qualities in order to understand how the world works. We, however, are so much smarter that the old civilizations..right? Ever since all this pandemic stuff started, I’m not so sure anymore.

I’ve watched the Documentary titled “ONE STRANGE ROCK” on Netflix and one of the most interesting points made was that the Earth maintains an OXYGEN level of 21% at all times, somehow, no matter what the idiot human species does to screw it all up. How the hell does that happen? Science can always explain things but how can this be just science or coincidence if this planet is not alive but a chunk of rock that happens to be made of or originated from CARBON when the human race is also carbon? Ima gonna rely on the metaphysical now! Not religion as much as an abstract reality, hard to grasp and even less able to be proven or believed! Lol..

WHAT IF: the world is alive and has decided it needs a chance to breathe and recoup from all the damage human beings have caused and it is unable to catch it’s breath so as a runner needs to stop moving to catch their breath, maybe this pandemic is Earth’s way to stop the insanity of man to allow it to catch up and reset things some. Perhaps not purposely killing people but genetically it may have ways to defend itself from being killed by the people it has birthed. We, even the scientists don’t know everything about the world and God is also not in control, no matter how many religious folks say he/she/it is. If God is real and he created a living, thinking walking species known as man, why can’t he create a living sentient planet that we have no idea how it all works that it adjusts itself to all the species on its face?

WHAT IF: the Earth has run up against the clock and needs to do something now before it is too late? We’ve destroyed forests, scarred the face of a beautiful planet digging for riches, irradiated places with a technology we barely understand, polluted and dirtied the oceans and the land with the dumping of trash, killed and killing the reefs, the corals that provide homes to a myriad of sea life, blasted a hole that is just recovering in our ozone layer and spewed tons of pollutants into the very air we breathe and in our backward way loosed a pandemic of epic proportions into the world through our lack of understanding on how we are extinguishing life on this planet in our selfish desires to be on top of the food chain, not realizing every single organism from microbes to diatoms to guppies, frogs, bees all the way up to man, are interconnected and in killing the smallest, we are killing the greatest!! Be that man or leviathan!

WHAT IF: Douglas Adams had it right in his “HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY!” about Dolphins being THE intelligent species in the world and man is not as smart as he thinks? Perhaps the planet Earth..Gaia..has realized this and found a need to interfere to correct the wrongs we have perpetrated upon her! Or perhaps I’m only reaching for an explanation to the crazy, topsy-turvy world 2020 has become! Let’s get through this safely and lament what has been lost and hold up to the light what we have hopefully learned in our woeful response to the cries of our world!

3/14/2020

You know those moments…

Moments when the only option is to step away?

Step back or lose yourself?

The maw of madness awaits..

A black hole of darkness,

Deep and unforgiving.

Climbing out is the trick.

So we turn to God..

Not realizing He is but a child playing in a sandbox?

Every grain of sand a celestial orb he gathered from the immensity of his reality to castles build..and…

Rarely does He know we exist..if at all!

We are but atoms in His sight..

Atoms in His sandbox..

That make up His reality as we beseech His mercy,

Not realizing..or knowing..

His judgement extends to what His fingertips touch.

He is not unkind, our Child-God..

But He is blind to us..much as microbes are to you and I,

And if He can not see, much less can He hear us..

But we hope!

We are the sand with which He plays..

Miniscule..small..expendable..

And He creates His legacy..

While we shout,

Gnash our teeth in anger,

Speak at riddles hoping to discover..

What?

To see if we can get God’s attention?

Is it chance..

Or a miracle when serendipity creates an answer?

Did God hear?

Or did He just decide at that moment to stand up,

and pour out a cup of water once his thirst sated,

while we believe God blessed us with rain..

Meanwhile..

Sad poets ask odd questions no one can answer…

While a God-Child plays amid the muck of make-believe ruinations,,and a preacher/pastor dances in the fire of his sermon adjuring the faithful to give to their belief..

To donate to an invisible being seen only by the righteous..

Give until it hurts!

And for some perhaps it does..the tithe tightening a belt ’round a waste of flesh in its sacrifice..

all so a God-Child will bless us with His presence..

In the background I hear strains of a song playing,

“and the band played on”,

Serendipity!

SECOND observation:

I will emerge from darkness/from the cold lewd of anger/at what is lost/Let me bask in the light of the sun/while the heat of the day burns this husk of dismay from my soul/The cold of purgatory/ slams its gates upon my frozen limbs/as I return to the land of life/in honor of that which deep is buried/Your footprints remain/I will bask in their presence/bathe in the glow of their memory/in/the midst of their sorrow/I will taste of the moments/savor wondrous laughter that lights up our spirits/the beacons of hope visible in waning dusk.