God, not another meh poem about the planet Written on days meant to commemorate but never remember— Earth day, Environment day, water day, wildlife day— Days we all pretend like we're concerned For the planet we call home Understanding nods, grave tones of voices proclaiming 'doom' And then, soon as that webinar or talk or fancy event ends, Whoosh go our promises Down the dumpster go the deeds. We complain about the heat while lounging smack dab in the middle of air-conditioned domes— Domes we lull ourselves into Bubbles we close ourselves into— not us, surely? Nothing bad will happen to me, right? Perhaps we simply cannot conceive of a catastrophe unfolding right in front of our eyes. Perhaps it is just the fact that one word, one phrase repeated enough times Loses all meaning. SOS could be urgent. SOS, SOS, SOS, SOS, SOS, SOS, SOS is just droning noise. So we thump our chests and wail 'climate change' In the middle of the planet burning, curling in with snaking hellfire embers as a paper ball does. As a paper ball this four billion-years old entire planet with... Nothing. Imagine nothing. Hard, isn't it? Our minds cannot even imagine nothing Cannot see the paper ball as ashes Cannot conceive of death. Now I see you, thinking, "But I always turn off the lights But I never throw away food But I carpool" It's not an 'I', you see, It's a we. A we who wages wars A we who lets moneyed men with tiny feet make giant carbon footprints A we who wants more, more, more A we who chooses ignorance. I will not claim that the Earth is crying. I will not tell you the universe will weep over this planet's demise, For it will not, And words, however powerful, however beautiful Cannot save you or me Or every single bird, chameleon or tree But perhaps there is still time to wipe away that sleep dust in our eyes and do what we speak For just another meh poem about the planet, perhaps, To try and re-verse this gloomy destiny.
22nd April/ (10/30)/ Happy Earth Day, folks. Don’t forget climate change is still a looming death sceptre over all of us.
Charlie and the cerebration factory 
“But perhaps there is still time
to wipe away that sleep dust in our eyes and do what we speak
For just another meh poem about the planet, perhaps,
To try and re-verse this gloomy destiny.” Bravo!
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Thanks! I’m glad these lines struck a chord with you.
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Ha ha! Tiny feet. Great stuff. You know, if you want to see how serious the elites are about fixing the climate, look at the transportation they took to get to the latest climate seminar. Davos one year had so many private jets, the valets ran out of places to put them. I mean, come on! If we’re going to tighten our belts and get down to brass tacks, let’s look at what causes the most pollution and deal with that. The commercial airline industry is one of the big ones, yet we don’t say one word about regulating or lessening it. Instead we in America go after “Developing” countries and Rural states that depend on coal production, turning it into yet another class thing. And people say, “But we need commercial airlines to visit relatives in far off places! Would you deprive grandma of seeing her grandkids?” First of all, shut up. If you cared that much about it, you’d move closer or convince her to move closer to you. Or figure out trains and buses. But that thought doesn’t cross people’s minds because trains and buses are for “those people” and not us plane fliers. And no one’s forcing you to take the job on the other side of the country, pal. Use Zoom and Facetime, take a train once a year to see grammy for Thanksgiving, or shut it!
Ahem. Anyways. Sorry about that tangent, but I feel pretty strongly about this issue. I’m just young enough that I’ll probably see the first waves of climate refugees fleeing the eastern seaboard of the United States due to sea level rise. So…. um…. yeah. Awesome poem! It made me feel, that’s for sure! I wish it could make everyone on Earth feel too. *Sigh*
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Don’t apologise, you have every right to be angry. People are really living in denial and use that flimsy grandma argument to convince themselves and others that it’s fine if we don’t tackle the biggest contributors to climate change. I didn’t know about the Davos thing, very hypocritical, but I’m not surprised: I’ve come to expect absolutely no actions-matching-words from rich or powerful people now.
On the subject of developing countries, I do agree that it’s absolutely essential that developed countries stop outsourcing their waste to the poor ones and cut down on their huge emissions, but it’s also important for developing countries to not follow in their footprints. Like, the Indian representatives at all these climate conferences push on greater accountability for first-world countries, and that’s good, but our own environmental minister holds the view that we need to ‘increase our coal consumption’ to be a developed country. Why would you make the exact same mistake that developed countries have already made? Why would you first fuck the planet over and then try to unfuck it? Why not go the sustainable development way? And god knows India has no dearth of renewable resources. So yes, I think all of us, whichever country we’re from, need to look beyond things like class and realise the fact that there will be no room for social conflicts if there is no planet to live on. I was kind of in this compassion fatigue stage too when I was snapped back by Don’t Look Up, which is a brilliant film. Really made me panic for a moment after I finished watching it. I wanted to kind of do that on a micro level with this poem that I was, ironically, asked to write for a webinar, and not let Earth Day be just another formality they had to get through.
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