For 'We Are The Children Of The Atomic Age
I.
For we are the children of the Atomic Age
Before our birth our genes were coded and spliced
Yet the earth, the earth, is beautiful
For fallout the wind brings that we cannot see
For nuclear power plants and missiles mapping our trails
Yet the earth is so beautiful
For the deception of powerful men we pay and pay
For their so strange illusion of boundless power
Yet the earth, the earth is so beautiful
for bald eagles and other endangered species
for the tragic magnificence of all the doomed
Yet the earth is beautiful everywhere
For people born today who will not live too long
For the medical profession which has no enduring cure
Yet the earth is beautiful still beautiful
For how we turn to flora and fauna for healing and love
for how those men's vision wins out over the earth
Yet the earth is still beautiful
How we dream again of her green vegetative hair
How they dream of an abstract ghostly heaven
Yet the earth, the earth, is beautiful
For our irradiated food and pesticide-drenched crops
For our vast indulgences that led to these disasters
Yet the earth is still beautiful
For foolish men's dreams of escaping to the stars
For their deadly machinery and all its effects
Yet the earth, the earth, is beautiful everywhere
for how the polar caps are really melting
for our prophecies of falling into the sea
Yet the earth, the earth and sea, are beautiful
For the thousands of species that have already died
For us who would like to survive-
For the earth / sea / sky are beautiful, so beautiful
II.
For how nature's subtle patterns resemble one another
How fireflies mirror the distant stars
And Hindu palaces look like children's sandcastles
And the sea contains butterfly patterned fish
For how black bats spread darkness with their caped wings
And light and shadow coruscate in a dance
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poem by Erika Horn
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