We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

3.4.21

How It All Turns Out

April Poem A Day Challenge, day 2:  
What does the future hold? Make the answer the title of your poem.

 

How It All Turns Out


The future holds the final answer,

the one we’ve all been waiting for,

the one that tells us How It All Turns Out. 


Will we really get our happy ever after,

saving the planet at last, then living in peace

in a richly productive, clean environment,

and not killing off all the other species

of living things – or even each other?


Or is it to be the mixture as before, going on 

ad infinitum? Or at least until the end 

of the horror movie, when we’re all dead?


We’ll all be dead anyway, of course.

Even if we could brew an Elixir of Immortality,

the place would get so damn crowded 

we’d have to find a way to do a cull.


Well, actually, it already is overrun

by us; getting quite out of hand. Increasingly,

our numbers strain the planet at the seams.


How will it all turn out? No need to wonder.

The planet will take care of it. Earth won’t die 

(pending of course the meteor, or the fading sun) 

but she will sort us out, as she has others.


(From skyloverpoetry wordlist: wonder.)

4 comments:

  1. Rosemary, this has been a concern of mine, though like your writer, not a worry of mine because I too won't live before the overpopulation breakdown. (I really do expect to make the 90's, Thursday my cardiologist said my parts for him were perfectly healthy. I have enjoyed the OBE's immensely and have high Hope's for the 90's, Dad lived to be 97, his memory, bones and eyes went bonkers a little before.)
    When I watch travel shoes and see the immensity of the populated areas I have no doubts you have 'penned' a truth. Some say we should go up but that's way to expensive for the masses, here a highrise two bedroom is way over one $million.
    So my message is that I have greatly enjoyed reading yours today.
    ..

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    1. I do hope I accompany you into the nineties, dear Jim! And I hope very much that we as a species learn our lessons before it's too late. (High rises that are not way too expensive end up as soul-destroying slums! We've had a few of them here.)

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  2. Love where you took this Rosemary--on some level we do have to trust that it will work out

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    1. While I think the planet will fix it, I'm not altogether sanguine about the possible methods. Is the horrifying pandemic a timely cull?

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