Said the girl to her Grandmother:
Put to words
Memory disincarnate
So we can carry
Tangible threads of then
In our hands
She replied:
Times when highway snakes
Trampled breeding grounds
And oil reigned supreme
When busyness meant merit
And violence hid inside
Rhetoric of valor
There were people in cages
And plastic in the water
Good food was wasted
While many starved
Some saw, and some fought
Some closed their eyes
Some were confused and manipulated
Not to care
Still, many hearts were led
To wisdom
Gems pressed by the heaviness
Of the times
When the birth of multitudes
Blended colors, genders, creeds
We found founts of sameness beneath
No one felt they could stop the red tide
Death and melting ice caps
Fires and storms took precious jungles
Animal cries pierced the silent night
From millions of miles away
Exploitation was its name
The few over the many
So it is with the history of humans
And so it was in the year 2020
One day a disease came
Disregarding status and place
Everyone took to their houses in fear
Some people believed the government
Would take their rights
The disease was a hoax
Or even,
Intentionally spread through acts of evil
Others paid less credence to the news
They listened to their gut and took a middle road
Carving their space on the earth with great care
Many gardens bloomed
And people looked to the earth and each other
For the richness they had been lacking
So my child, today we stand
On the rubble of what came before
Evolving beyond the forces that turned
Animal instincts into cancerous carnivorous disaster
The earth is powerful
And greed could not consume her
She balanced herself with the goodness
That bloomed even in the hearts of those who had caused the death
For they were also of her
and she forgave them
The granddaughter, taking in these words
Looked up at the blue sky, breathed the clean air
Thanked the Earth
And scampered off on grateful feet
Toward the ocean