Providence of a Dying Planet

Petrol fumes on Rushlake Crescent 

Wafting between the grey buildings

That skirt the reeking tarmac road

Which, with great thanks to the sun,

Smokes a poisonous and sickly gas.

Polluted lungs and choking children

From a nearby school zone, thick

And threatening white stripes painted

Eternally on the road, lines that warn

Drivers to slow! or else the innocent

Strips will be stained red with blood.

And on what was once a verdant horizon

Lay thousands of shining silver squares

That gleam with the light of a dying

Planet, an earth that hungers for

Simple salvation; for relief, for security,

For life. It longs to be saved from us.

Among that grotesque skyline beam 

Bright lights from inside every building

Glowing industrial yellow behind each window.

And beyond, further in the distance,

Unmistakably indistinct, there is more.

There is more than what we can see right now, 

What we first interpret as a spreading urban

disease, there is much more. There is yet

Another city, yet another conurbation of dejection

And complete relentless dereliction

That cannot be combated with even the

Strongest mind, or the strongest will to produce

Luscious greenery. Inevitable, the metropolis

Afflicts the natural beauty with its greedy

Ashen abnormality that plagues even the

Brightest city. I watch as my own city is drowned

In a grey sea, until nothing remains but callous 

Concrete, and all that remains is ourselves, until even

We fade away from the earth (at our own hands),

And my head is held to face my city as it

Decays and I can do nothing. With the earth

As my city, I had so much to protect, and

Now I have so much to lose. The fire

Spreads and engulfs my city in one last

Flame, going out in a literal blaze of glory.

My city is the whole earth, and someday soon

We shall all have to bear witness to its fate.