Extinction Poem by Albert Ahearn

The Past

A pristine blue sky
Mirrored agrarian lives
Living with nature.

Their work was always difficult
But that never seemed to matter.
Their crops were all that counted most:
Enough to feed the family
In good times as well as the bad
Everyone loved their plot of land.
They knew it meant their survival
So the hard work was the tradeoff.
What developed was mutual
Respect: an interconnection
Whereby one affects the other;
But then one day a cloud appeared:
A black, menacing, looming cloud
Foretelling future misfortune.

The Present

The industrial
Revolution dawned under
This foreboding cloud.

Machines began to do the work
That man and beasts for eons had
Performed with blood, sweat and tears.
His work was easier to do
But soon discovered that he had
Become an industrial slave.
A mere symbiotic creature:
His nature was parasitic.
He no longer had in himself
The oneness and independence
That he had always called his own.
He’d become fat and ignorant
Living by his own destructive
Philosophy: hedonism.

The future

The sky is poisoned
As well as the land and the seas.
The earth was dying.

Through Mans continuous neglect
The earth became terminally
Ill. It was no longer able
To sustain the needs of Mankind.
War broke out all over the globe
Millions killed, many more had starved
To death; billions soon will follow
Billions more after that. The stench
Of rotting flesh has overwhelmed
Those able to live another
Hopeless day, gasped the putrid air
Futile murmurings continued
Until silenced by the guns
The ultimate judicature.

An eerie silence
Prevailed and all that was heard
Was screeching vultures.