We live off a surface band,
top soil that shrinks and crumbles away.
Stripped of
dainty, green masts of nature’s solar panels, fluttering in the wind
while footholds shoot down to the homes of earthworms,
in a scheme of wooden taproots.
Ripped out of the growth reservoir,
extremes from floods to dust storms grow and
erode dark plant matter,
pushing night crawlers to dig deeper, into dormancy,
no longer nibbling plant tissues
and moulding thriving soil.
Parched patches expand on the planet.
“We must change the world,” we proclaim.
Most likely in the future, we wish.
Watered-down plans might divert holidays flights
from a few days stop in fierce, glaring sunshine
to a hunt on scarce, cooling water sources.
While we are pondering,
rushing around
making atoms swap places,
whirl up the state of creation,
the Earth fever is record high,
roasted by our hot air.
