Image credit: Pixabay

Of the mountains’ majestic strength
Of the valleys in between
Of the streams and the rivers
Which flow crystal clean

Earth of the oceans
The blue planet
Blue seas
Blue skies

Earth of vast forests 
Thick and green
Full of life
Uniquely seen

Of salty oceans
With washing waves
Of sunlit hours
Of passing days

Home to life
To beauty
To millions of tiny miracles
Unfolding
All the time
Imperfect
Which is perfect

What makes Earth different
Is growing, changing
Trillions of tiny breaths
Blood flows on the Earth
And nowhere else

Where you can bask in the shallows
Warmed by the sun
Cooled by the breezes
Carried by the rivers
Fed from the soil

Which pulses with life 
Where the song of the swallow
And the laugh of the brook
And the trumpet of the elephant
Which gave, never took

Where the flight of the butterflies
Carry the songs in the breeze
Where critters make their homes
In the trunks of the trees

The eye of the eagle
The roar of the beast
The cold in the North
And the warmth in the East

Though different, together they sing
They carry the rhythm
In feet, fins, and wings

Then come the people
Who need to create
They think and they talk
They grow and they mate

They can’t sing like the swallow
Can’t roar like the beast
They don’t come equipped
With claws or sharp teeth
But the cleverest of all
They make progress their mission
What they don’t have in nature
They create with ambition

Generation after the next
They make beautiful things
They keep improving
While the rest of Earth sings

Soon their progress
Is knocked off track
They create and destroy
And they never give back

They are harming the world
They are repeatedly warned
They struggle to fix it
As Earth quickly warms

And the majestic mountains
Are mined to bits
Stripped of value
Now empty pits

And the green valleys
Now grow with crop
As the soil turns to dust
And the plants start to rot

It creeps over the forests
Like an evil black fog
And the clear blue sky
Turns to brown from the smog

Now on Earth
Blood is flowing
Oh yes, blood is flowing

The swallows don’t sing
The beasts are all slaughtered
The fish lay dead
In the rubbish-choked waters

The trunks of the trees
Are turned into lumber
And the critters that lived there 
Are killed by the gunners

What was once a blue planet
Marred only by green
Is now brown
With a red and black sheen

You can’t bask in the chemical-filled shallows
Can’t be warmed by the smoke-blocked sun

There’s no place unharmed by man
Breezes carry toxins
And the rivers are dammed

Earth
Which wasn’t fixed when the chance was had
Which was sapped of its beauty
When happy turned sad

The powerful hunted
For personal gain
The simple things hunted
Just to cause pain

The planet’s song silenced
And it was too late
The music of nature
Was stifled by hate