The Earth, a swirling azure tropic
band,
Is cupped between two loving polar hands.
Once past, when in their prime,
They stretched in glacial time,
To explore and curl,
In crystal passion,
To encase the world.
Life, from Earth's rich breadth,
Was driven to a rim of waves,
And hunkered in chill caves,
Starving and near death.
Then slumberous mountains
Burned with ire,
And drove back cold desire,
Returned to its once wonted place,
Each a frozen thought of that embrace,
Caught up in their lamenting icy breath.
Then Man, new sprung with sharpened mind,
Transformed the land with pasture,
Town and stone-grey grime,
And struck with blade
And Promethean crime
At the limbs on which he climbed.
The world choked hot with pain,
At beams of sun no longer free,
Those polar lovers shrank in shame,
And cast their cloaks of ice into the sea.
The Northern Belle,
A new Persephone,
Gone for half a year below,
Her Southern Love,
Now punctured with lost pride,
Shed floating sheets of fractured snow,
And dying, slid into the rising tides.
Those azure tropics,
Now a source of fear,
Drive whirling blades
Relentlessly to shore,
Our cities drown in waves,
And rain and tears.
An angry crowd
Chides leaders to do more.
Perhaps the world is waking
Not too late,
Our brightest minds
Might yet devise a cure.
We've seen barbarian seas
Splash at our gates.
Now is the time of change.
We must endure.