How important is the environmental issue this year? Personally, I have been working on a better environment since 1971, with my first creek clean-up... It has always been my one or two top priorities. I know saving democracy, a more just society, improving social security, health care, taxing the rich and so many other subjects demand our attention, but if we don’t devise and enact the path to a quality, sustainable environment – no one survives! Anyway, here is an environmental poem...
To Breathe or Not To Breathe
When Shakespeare's Hamlet spoke
those immortal words I've parodied,
the Bard breathed cleaner air than we.
Wood smoke and ash, of course,
the effluvium of horse dung
and the stink of people filled
the air of London town and
Stratford upon Avon, still
pollution from the industrial thrall
was a century's air away.
We face the debris of burning coal,
natural gas and oil,
other exotic factory fumes and pesticides,
plastic fibers, car tire wear, depleted soil,
the thickened skies of forest fires,
and pollen, too, to our lungs' ire.
We'll take in air, we must,
or otherwise give way to dust.
I long for that day when pure
water is again a throat's delight,
clean air to breathe a natural right,
so pledge now to the ultimate sight
of a sustainable world paradise.
Carl Scott Harker ©2024
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Here is a link to one of many books of my poetry now available on Amazon. You can find more great poems here: An Engineer of Words.
Update: Spelling/grammatical error has been corrected – oops!