The rain, sweet with the scent of summer,
soaks the earth in its persistent falling from a woolly sky
heavy with moisture imported from a place far away.

Those who know tell us it will rain for days
as the west burns in the unrelieved heat of the sun –
all of this beyond our control thanks to the willingness
of a handful to profit by whatever means possible.

Those with the money hold the reins while we,
the expendable fodder of greed, pay the price
for the wholesale destruction of our only home.

Exhausted by the violence of nature we feed
with violence against it, I wonder how long we can sustain
what we call normal as the rape of the earth continues.

If nothing changes the earth will die – plants, animals,
oceans and us – leaving only the stars to witness
what the unprincipled, safe in their underground palaces,
have wrought in the madness of greed.

But, eventually, they too will die, and the universe
will again – as it’s done so many times before –
redesign the earth to ensure its existence.

© 2022 RC deWinter