Appetites

You cannot stop smoking

although you know it is killing your lungs.

You cannot stop eating
although you know it is killing your heart.

You cannot stop producing and purchasing useless junk

      although you know it is killing your planet.

Something profoundly human in this,

      I guess. Still,

it does seem like a shame.

Allow me, then, a small proposal:

Forget all of the international conferences

to negotiate treaties that probably won’t work

and that no one will observe anyway, even

if a treaty is signed which it probably won’t be.

Let us call one, final and definitive

international conference

to rename the earth “Easter Planet”―

after that Pacific isle,

once an abundant paradise,

over-indulged to the point

      of starvation. 

Visit there today.

      Take a voyage into your future.

The massive monuments

we have constructed

will remain standing too,

for a time.

And aliens who come down

to visit a few centuries from now

will, perhaps, after a quick

assessment, place a small plaque

      before they depart:

“Something profoundly human

in this,” the words will read. “Still,

it does seem like a shame.”

Steve Bloom

December 2012