The natural world
goes about its business
in ways that humankind,
with its boundless lack of wisdom,
struggles to even label,
much less comprehend.
Through the centuries
we have used words like
organismic, systemic, holistic,
even vitalistic.
All attempts to capture
the very simple idea,
that everything exists
in an endlessly interconnected
web of life.
Every tree, flower, blade of grass
animal, human being, and
the very water and air itself,
all joined in one rapturous
orgy of interdependency.
So that when one strand
of the web fails,
we all feel the blow,
suffer the injury.
And yet we still cut and burn
and drill and consume, as though
the future is the concern of others.
Which of course it is.
Others who aren’t here yet
to cry out at our insanity,
our callous indifference,
our contempt for that
which sustains and nourishes us.
But the future is waiting.
It’s out there,
just around the next bend.
Waiting, wondering
what we’ll leave behind.
October 21, 2020
Brian Kenneth Swain