“I want you act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.” Greta Thunberg, January 25, 2019

Our house is on fire. Nine western states in the United States have major fires. Millions of acres have burned or are ablaze along the entire west coast. Everyone who lives here is feeling the effects, if not directly from the fires, then by eerie, smoke filled skies. The devastation is real to personal property, health, the loss of flora, fauna, and human life.

And the Amazon is still burning.

Beginning in September 2019, Australia was on fire for 210 days.

There have been hurricanes, cyclones, monsoons, and other storms that have displaced millions of people across the globe by flooding, landslides, mudslides, and dam collapses.

On July 1^st it was 90° in Siberia; On August 17^th it was 130° in Death Valley, California

There has been a plague of locusts that have devastated large swathes of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

And let us not forget Covid19…

Has Mother Nature gotten our attention yet? She is suffering at our hands by our over consumption of fossil fuels and things, most of which we don’t need. It’s time that we come together as brethren of humanity, to stop fighting over our differences and see what unites us, to live on this blessed, vivifying planet and work to stop the degradation of Earth, our home. It is going to take serious commitment to turn things around. We need to start now.

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Oh Mother, Your wondrous forests burn.

Once verdant countrysides are now parched; no rain falls to slake their thirst.

Arctic ice melts and polar bears starve on drifting floes.

Hurricanes and monsoons inundate, too much water there, not enough here,

Heat everywhere, hotter and hotter.

Oh Mother, I feel your pain.

You choke on our garbage.

You are poisoned with chemicals to kill unwanted plants and insects.

Fishes wash up on your shores, drowned in seas strangled with algae.

Oh Mother, I feel your pain.

You are burdened under the proliferation of humanity

Greedily depleting the natural resources you give so generously,

 Raiding your vast wilderness for homes with groomed gardens,

Becoming irate when coyote or bear or deer seek food or water from their once wild habitat.

Oh Mother, I am in pain.

My eyes burn from the smoke filled air,

My veins run with tears

As I watch the blood red sun set in a grey sky,

And the hazy moon wander across the starless night.

Frances Tallarico