I entered this poem in an International Poetry Competition, and it won as a runner-up. I was asked to attend their Annual Convention in San Francisco to pick up my medal and recite it, which I did.
Deanna Shlee
Hello, my friend--my very old friend. Are you really five billion years old? You have spread your beauty every evening to signal the end of another day. Sometimes your colorful blanket has descended on peace and happiness, sometimes on war and grief, always conveying the assurance that you will be there. Until now. Now one of your children is in trouble, and the spoiled and selfish inhabitants are to blame. You have smiled your warmth creating a fertile and productive home, and we have plundered and fouled the beautiful land and pure water. But it was not always so. When I was a child, I drank from the cool waters running from the mountains and ate freely of the food picked from our gardens and trees. I breathed deeply of the invisible air and enjoyed the caress of your rays. Pollution and contamination held no meaning; it was a different time. The first atomic bomb had not been tested, we did not lock our homes, we greeted a knock at our door with "Come on in." Evening was spent on the front porch with our neighbors discussing the events of the day as your calming sunset treated us to its display. People were closer then, with time for caring. We depended on ourselves...and each other. Then the pace of life quickened, and people built fences around their yards --and their lives. We bought processed foods, stayed indoors --found no time for the sunsets or for the caring. Now environmentalists and scientists are caring --and warning, but they cannot do it alone. We stand like a power over nature --demanding, taking, assuming an unending fount. The sky is hazy, your sunsets blurred. Your face is blocked from view by smoke and spewed death. We assume your child will accept the abuse with silence and bow to our demands, that you also will stand by silently in response to our arrogance and ego. But how long will you stand by like a long-suffering parent and wait for us "to see the light?" Is our rain now your acid tears of sorrow --killing --killing the lesser among us as a warning to the greater? Has your comforting warmth turned to the fire of anger --anger to purge us for our uncaring? As I have watched your great disk touch the horizon, I wonder if you are --testing for a change, an improvement. And I whisper a prayer-- Wait, please wait. Give us another day. All this beauty cannot be lost when some of us still care. This child cannot become like its brothers and sisters --cold and barren or molten and deadly. You have so much to give ... I want so much to taste and enjoy again.