Air-Conditioned Poem by gershon hepner

Air-conditioned in their SUVs
the people drive past forests still unpaved,
deploring the ecologists who’ve saved
the land from which they all are absentees,
while greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere
and hurricanes and floods create disasters,
because the universe is ruled by masters
who show it no respect and little fear.

We must burn fossils for we’ll die
if we don’t fry in winter, freeze in summer,
while following the beat set by a drummer,
ignoring what the experts prophesy.
Unless we move our right foot from the pedal
and learn to breathe without an air-condition
our planet will require no mortician
when silent as an after-pogrom shtetl.

4/17/01