letter to the future

         Dear members of posterity,

Please accept our deepest apologies

for the death, distress and disparity;

we were rolling drunk on gasoline sprees.

How's Mother Nature? And how's the weather?

Do you stay in touch? Still live together?

Have the world’s problems been well-diagnosed?

Has the blueprint for heaven come in yet?

Is there food for all life on the planet?

Wait ‘til ev’ryone’s served, like a good host.

         Will you welcome words of wisdom?

Our cent’ry hasn’t been free with advice;

we're first to find our place in the system.

With so much going wrong, who can wax wise?

Like glaciers, of native wit and warm blood,

waste and devastation did we beget,

gobbling up Earth in a prolific flood,

for we did not think we'd live to regret.

         As for ruthless Mother Nature,

she had no sense of self-preservation;

she’d strike forests, disprove homo faber,

pave land, drain each ocean, drown each nation.

Ignorant optimist leaders combusted us,

promised victory over Nature through cussedness—

lauded by the cautious, whom it affirms.

We need leaders as firm as bullfighters,

who speak to scientists, not speechwriters,

strong enough to meet Her surrender terms.

         But who can say just what we’ll see?

A rocket belt on ev’ry bag lady;

we’ll sit around in a network of thoughts,

sip orange drink through straws like astronauts.

Humans may be a passing fad.

         Cheers and best wishes,

                  dear old dad.