Read the Signs

Days of wild adventure, pulsing with delights
are turning into zombie days that fade to zombie nights.
Nothing on our agendas. No traveling, no dates—
our calendars reduced to onerous empty slates.

It does no good to protest. God hears not when we ask.
We merely have to don that necessary mask.
Though every instinct urges camaraderie,
Mother Nature warns us that she will wait and see.

Will we clean up our messes? Put out every fire?
Calm her winds of warning before we all expire?
Ban plastic from her oceans, stop digging for black gold?
Cool the global warming and restore the cold?

If we will not listen, she’ll only turn deaf ears
to all our present pleadings, to all our future fears.
Oh foolish foolish children, just dealing with effects
instead of paying heed to what nature expects.

Prompt words today are instinct, nothing, protest, onerous and zombie.