There is nothing given but what something is taken away.   For many lifetimes our planet has given her people lush greens and vibrant blues and a sundry of goods to please the avaricious heart.   We know for a fact who this is among us.   We all participate in the plundering of our Mother Earth;  in the substances thrown away and the largess of her native goods taken and without thought trashed.   There is not one among us free of this greedy behavior.

Now we sit in the arid fracture of the very ground we live on.   The land cries for water to heal the crevices on her  face.   The evergreen needles dry up and crumble.   The forest is now a tinder camp.  Anything will touch a fire unable in this drought to be contained.

What was given with such great promise now lies before us with no life in it.   A doomsday?  It will be on this planet of great numbers.  Arguments will be loud and angry for those who wish to hold their wells for private use.   States with no water will lay pipelines to places where this liquid gold was once taken for granted.

How do we appease this Mother to again deliver what was once a luxury but now a necessity to simply stay alive?  How do we define a need and not a want to simply lay color on the landscaping?   We know our penchant for waste.   We know our neglectful habits.   We have tossed our trash to the winds and it hangs like dirty laundry on the trees and bushes and  awnings on every main street.  How can we ask forgiveness when a lifetime of habits show no discipline?   Where a lifetime of habits show no concern to those whose needs were greatest?  Where lifetimes took what the Earth gave with no gratitude for the gift?

This is not a pleasant treatise to read  and neither to write.   But soon eyes will be opened to what a catastrophe this Earth planet has become.  What illusions people harbor that life as they know it will continue ad infinitum.  There is no ad infinitum for this Earth planet.  It is in a precarious position and if we find the heavens playing Russian roulette with people, we have only ourselves to blame.  Live and let live has been the policy at hand.  But with billions of humans starving to death,  with fires starting in every corner of the planet,  with wars engaging the young who have yet to dream dreams,  we should not doubt that the cosmic fist strikes hard.

We will,  all of us, learn other ways if we and our progeny are to grow in this best of all classrooms.  We will bless our Mother Earth with each spoonful of porridge grown on a parched field.   When we will be gratified for just a sip of water knowing that satiating  human thirst is no longer a wish to be granted.

Can it be turned around?  With the Grace granted to the well intentioned soul,  perhaps we have some time left to repair what we have dashed upon the rocks with so little concern.   How deep is our desire to rectify?  Starting now,  perhaps we have a saving grace.   Life is a gift anywhere and we have not been stewards of this greatest gift, our green planet.   We can only hope that our new promises will grant us time.  If our promises are kept, we will know that our Earth Mother takes our promises seriously and she will grant forgiveness.   And  our beloved planet will not become a memory.

 Apologies are only as good as the new behavior that should follow them.

Photo by John Holmes