Population Poetry 1

Image courtesy of Karina McLeod and the Caselberg Trust

Population Poetry

            For years I have known that what I write is too intellectual, too wordy, too preachy. I have sought poetry on aspects of human population, and finally found a few poems worth sharing. Please read slowly and meditate. With thanks to Karen Shragg and Roger Martin, who both gave permission for me to use their work. More poetry next month!

Richard

Eve and the Fall by Roger Martin   In ancient Africa, the Lord of Earth, The Gaia, keeper of the sacred flame Of life upon this favoured speck of dust, Spoke to the ape-girl, Lucy, in a dream.   “You have done well. That brain is growing fast. Time to become a human. Listen hard, And tell the others, and the ones to come.   Throughout this Eden I have given you You shall be matriarch of beasts undreamt. They’ll live a life of eagles, always fed, And see all things, and roam the earth and sky, And read the seas and stars, and want for nought, Provided that they follow this command. Already you can feed of plants and flesh, And only two fruits grow beyond your reach. Both now I give you. But remember this: You must eat both together, or else none. The tree of Knowledge has the sweetest fruit; The fruit of Wisdom’s bitter, green and hard. But if you gorge upon the first alone, Without the second fruit to balance it, Your offspring shall be locusts in the spring. They’ll breed, and swarm, and feed, till, numberless, They’ve stripped the land of everything that grows, And, Earth once made a desert, die in heaps. That brain will free you from my disciplines Of claw and dearth and sickness for a time. Control your numbers only, now you can, And Earth shall always be your Paradise.”   And Lucy, awe-struck, grunted in her sleep; And half-awoke, and jabbered to her mate, And told him all that lingered from the dream. “We’ll eat the fruit of Knowledge, and we’ll live Like eagles, and like locusts numberless. The Earth is ours.” Working Upstream by Karen I. Shragg   Tick Tick Tick Every second, the sound Of new passengers Added to the spaceship Long past being able to sustain them Work at the problem’s source Where the stream begins at just a trickle Tick Tick Tick It takes courage to work upstream And stay there When the world is pushing us Further down To focus on cures Instead of causes At results Instead of actions Tick Tick Tick It takes wisdom to know That all will be futile If we don’t work at the source That’s where the possibility of success lives And where social justice resides Tick Tick Tick Don’t let them tell you You don’t have a heart because You work upstream Like the Wizard had to show the Tinman Those who work upstream have always had the biggest heart of all.

©Richard Grossman, MD 2015

PS: Karen Shragg is also the author of a new book: “Move Upstream–A Call to Solve Overpopulation”