My Clever Child

by Brandon R. Hays, USA

My clever child,
Oh how you’ve grown,
But always I’ll be near.
How wide you’ve cast
Your cities vast,
Your mother Earth is here.
 
In years of yore,
In harmony,
You lived with all the rest:
Midst ease and strife
And death and life,
What’s stable is what’s best.
 
But as you’ve grown,
Has come to pass
What was my greatest fear:
You raise a knife
Against all life,
You kill, to me, what’s dear.
 
And now what’s left
Ground under heel,
Just to hear the sound:
The stomping tread
Of progress dread,
The noise of death resounds.
 
Now things begin to change again,
but always I’ll be near.
Though storm winds blow
and waters flow,
your mother Earth is here.
 
The heat does rise
And ice, it melts,
But always I’ll be near.
Time to adapt,
The poles uncapped,
Your mother Earth is here.
 
In years to come
you’ll grow yet more,
With challenges to face.
The bombs you’ve built,
The blood you’ve spilt,
These things may you erase.
 
You’ve grown so great,
Now dangerous,
Your numbers they aggrieve.
I fear that you
Yourself undo,
But this you won’t believe.
 
Yet still there’s time
To change once more,
Stable you can be.
Renewal’s nigh
If you but try
To live in harmony.
 
I hope for you
new peace to find,
but always I’ll be near.
For all of you,
My children true,
Your mother Earth is here.