GAIA MOURNS HER SCARS

Woman, why are you weeping,
Bent in scalding tears?
What has wrenched your heart to breaking,
No smile to hide your fears?

“Look here! Can you but see?
They’ve shaved away my mountain –
The trees, the moss, the laurel –
The scent of morning dew!”

“Naught but crags and crevices,
Jagged holes and caves
With muddy sludge for rivers,
Can you not weep for shame?”

I am but sorry witness –
I have not done these things;
Yet in my deepest heart I know
That somehow I’m to blame.

The coal, the oil that fuel my day –
The wealth of Mother Earth —
Are wrenched from her without a care:
Her virgin soil is raped!

And yet I cannot help but see,
Despite these ugly scars,
Amidst the very ravaged wounds,
A rainbow new to me.

For what was once a forest green,
Had hidden from my eyes
The color-rich terrain beneath:
Rock bathed in subtle dyes!

The violence we wreak on earth
Is ours to suffer from;
But God, in all His loveliness,
Cannot be overcome!