Are You Listening?

I don’t etch stone tablets
or scratch parchment rolls
I don’t couch advice in obscure
parables or convoluted symbols
there is no need for interpretation
my language is universal
it is plain and open to everyone

Hear me in the drying winds
breathe the stinking air
sip the tainted waters
feel the crackling ground
hunger for the dwindling fish

Do you hear me?

Are you listening?

You take too much
you have no sense of harmony
you believe you are in control
and that I am yours to use
but you are arrogant
and you are wrong

The passenger pigeon was not
for you to obliterate
not the elephant
and not the wolf
you have become an infestation
and you are failing

Do you hear me?

Are you listening?

Listen to drying ground
listen to the melting ice
listen to the rising sea
listen damn it
listen

Marv Himmel
October 6, 2016 ©