Dear Mother,

You choke on the hot breath of our gas guzzling, air snuffling, motorized genius

Products designed for our own convenience

Greasy, grimy, slippery oil

Seeping into your velvety soil

Washing up on your emerald coasts

Marring the part of you that I love the most                                                                                            

 

Mother I’m sorry­­

Your blue-eyed skies now grim and gray

Our light so bright that your neighbors fade

Your forests, your seeds, your babes

Gone with the swipe of a single blade

­­The old ones deny that you are in pain

The more you suffer, the more we gain

 

I swear that I’m sorry

Mother I stress

Even our leaders will try to digress

But I remember the spill of twenty-twelve

I remember the oil all too well

The seagulls choked

The tuna, the flounder, the mackerel all croaked

 

I was taught to leave a place cleaner than when I found it

But mother, I admit

I apologize

A better you is just something to fantasize.