Four Billion Years
Four Billion Years
Four billion years of evolution,
Maybe more,
And we've come to this:
Abstractly desiring an intangible wad of green paper
That holds no intrinsic value—
Other than perhaps as a modicum of power and influence.
Four billion years—
And what have we accomplished?
We've burned down the rain forest
To make room for cattle farms
That are operated by colored people
That aren't paid enough to eat—
Yes, that's right, the white man still owns slaves—
So that we can grow morbidly obese,
Grease dripping from our mouths
Down the folds of fat that line our chins
To caress the curvature of our stomachs—
Circumference ever expanding.
We've made our children stupid,
Forcing them down the assembly line
Of public education; teaching them
To become disinterested in the world around them;
Telling them that what they like has no value
To society and that their lives lack meaning
If they lack surplus.
Our kids idolize the wealthy because they have things,
And things—I have been told—
Are more important than progress.
We're making oily bonfires in the desert
To illuminate upon our indifferences.
We destroy what we are told to destroy
Without considering the consequences,
Without realizing the dialectics we avoid,
The logic we could accrue from listening.
We believe a national identity
Is more essential than our relationship to species,
Thinking that we can only gain
Through our taking.
Four billion years,
Four billion years,
And we are looking at the end of the world,
Hoping for Rapture,
Praying that we go to heaven,
Granted a second life,
[...] Read more
poem by Tim Stensloff
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