Not Poetry. Quatrain Verse in English & Swedish. Dagsverser. On the Mundane & the Arcane.
A limerick on a birthday of a neighbor who’s both an accomplished scientist & in his youth gymnast:
There was a youngish man called Igor
who treats all he meets with ardor
a man of great science
with strong self-reliance
Among Norse gods resembles most Thor!
*)
Why Thor? Because they both rather swing a thunderbolt hammer than just sit around and yammer
“It didn’t take long for researchers examining the tiny sea snails to see something amiss. The surface of some of their thin outer shells looked as if they had been etched by a solvent. Others were deeply pitted and pocked. These translucent sea butterflies known as pteropods, which provide food for salmon, herring and other fish, hadn’t been burned in some horrific lab accident. They were being eaten away by the Pacific Ocean. Scientists have documented that souring seas caused by carbon dioxide emissions are dissolving pteropods in the wild right now along the U.S. West Coast. That is damaging a potentially important link in the marine food web far sooner than expected.”
– Seattle Times, April, 2014:
http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2014/apr/30/pteropod-shells-dissolving
As long as us humans are ‘evolving’
so what if other ones are dissolving?
Generational abdication
by humans turned the crisp ocean
through acute acidification
into soup of toxic potion
The mollusk pteropod
in translucent shell
now by CO2 flawed
Chimes food chain’s death knell
No longer just a notion
effects ubiquitous
No longer mere slow motion
collapse precipitous
By humans running roughshod
the shells now pocked, softened
of the hapless Gastropod
Grandkids’ future coffined
By killing the pteropod
we’re denying Pterogod
+)
-gastropod = mollusk comprising the snails, whelks, slugs, etc.
-mollusk = a large group of animals (such as snails and clams) twho live in a shell
-pteropod = a small mollusk with winglike extensions for swimming
-‘Pterogod’ = (by license) that of God in Everyone and Everything
We ignore stentorian warning:
Planetary life keeps crumbling
in depletion, pollution, warming
met by our evasive mumbling
We equivocate & grumble
just own convenience is heeded
Glaciers melt & earthquakes rumble
not taking steps urgently needed
Our children & theirs shall pay the price
if we won’t change habits, they’re doomed:
As rivers drain, temperatures rise
ending them too early entombed
But for us, for now, a small price to pay
for enjoying the American Way?
I do my best thinking
although won’t be medaling
mostly rinky-dinking
But still by a next pedal stroke
I may find myself in vogue
by having finally turned woke
tired out from being such rogue
And we can’t all have a proclivity
for theories of relativity …
*)
“It came to me while riding my bicycle”, said Albert Einstein about his Theory of Relativity
Hey, as you’ve noticed, kids
due to your grownups’ misuse
the world is on the skids
Harsh, but what’s your own excuse?
Ponder the wider scope
beyond merely trope
perhaps you can still cope
be it on tightrope:
Ahead lie hard balancing acts
so don’t delay learning the facts!
There’s no longer much stretch left
of our Species’ narrowing path
which, had we back then been deft,
could’ve used to brake the planet’s wrath
Instead we caused Earth to crumble
by our consumption willful
Recklessly kept up in rumble
our feigned ignorance skillful
Unwilling to restrain
we decided to downplay
Little time shall remain
until our Species’ doomsday
Our shuffling so far in dismal dance
assures that our Species stands no chance
If you insist go right ahead! Be my guest! Just don’t involve us!
Well, aren’t you persistent
it did happened in the past
may in future distant
But we would still be miscast!
For should it happen in the present
we’d rather stay unaffected!
Such a tiresome & irksome event
must out of hand be rejected!
We avoid things unnerving
enabling us to glide along
on our life path unswerving
no worry until our swan song
Until then we prefer rush headlong
heedlessly, unblushingly headstrong!
+)
-Sixth Mass Extinction = Over the last half-billion years, life on Earth has been nearly wiped out five times. It’s happening right now for the sixth time. Let’s give ourselves a big hand for so splendidly helping it along this time around!
Global warming
A bike dealer who mentions global warming may indeed be guilty of the same self serving cheap promotion as the car dealership, which flies an over sized American flag or the politician who presumes to speak for ‘all hardworking folks’.
Be this as it may, the earth is “on the verge of disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control, causing mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.”
James Hansen, the chief climate scientist at NASA, returned to Capitol Hill in June, on the twentieth anniversary of his 1988 testimony, to indeed warn that the earth is on the verge of “disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control,” causing “mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.”
Obviously no amount of bicycling shall reverse or by itself significantly slow the spiraling.
Nothing shall. Short of perhaps radical life style changes right now, which clearly ain’t happening.
But for all its horror I’d personally rather know than living in denial of my own betrayal of future generations. Being only one of some 7 billions humans cannot lessen my complicity. I have sadly done nothing beyond mildly inconveniencing myself regarding arguably the greatest calamity that can possibly face life on planet Earth.
Yes, too much to ask:
Don’t interfere
we won’t wear a mask
too cavalier!
Then haven’t we sacked
any & all fact?
With all lies stacked
lost all sense & tact?
Facts are too socialist & abstract
won’t let such ungodliness detract!
You’re inclined meticulously
to plan & take precaution?
Then you’re lost ridiculously
in culture of incaution
A bygone mode conceptually
so why then go to the trouble
when we’re doing exceptionally
in our own sweet ad lib bubble?
Why indeed waste proclivity
on a laughed-at activity?