Incessant Laboring
I know that if all men stopped
Their labors throughout the world
The air would clear of its grimy haze
And the canals of Venice would flow
Clear as the waters of Homosassa Springs.
The birds would all return to their
Migratory patterns and Earth
Would again breathe freely
Unlike the chronic chain smoker
We have turned it into.
The heat of summers would return
To their cooler climes and the glaciers
Would stop their retreating
Into the alpine lakes
Freezing viruses like a delicacy
Preserved for that special holiday
When men could not cease their
Incessant laboring.
September 2024
About This Poem
The COVID pandemic is what inspired this poem, though what brought it to mind so long after it was over now escapes me. I still think about how quiet it was, no traffic, the water cleaned itself up. Seems like we could do with that more often. In the end of the poem, I personify earth as someone who freezes things for later which seemed appropriate considering how pandemics can erupt. The picture is the Cascade mountains on a clear day near Snoqualmie pass.
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