Earth Day 2072: A Tale of Two Planets by IHRAM 2021 Youth Fellow Maggie Munday Odom
April 22, 2021 is the 51th anniversary of Earth Day. This poem looks ahead another 51 years and imagines two opposite possible futures for Mother Earth and all who walk upon her.
i.
This catastrophe was prophesied.
Fifty years ago, the scientists forewarned us,
citing graphs with angry red lines barreling up, up, up!
The activists drafted bill after bill, begging us to open our eyes.
Every Friday, the students screamed in the streets,
desperate for a future.
Yet an epidemic of silence infected the people,
as so many scoffed and turned away.
The politicians, drunk on selfishness and greed,
dipped their pens in oil, signed legislation
to please the men made of money who burped emissions.
This catastrophe was prophesied.
For fifty years, we burn burn burn.
Mother Earth gags on gas
and chokes on fossil fuels,
as factories vomit into our atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases blanket us
in a suffocating fever.
The ailing ocean grows nostalgic at the memory of blue.
Glaciers weep.
Waves leap upwards to swallow the hazy horizon,
devouring the blackened sky.
The bulging ocean spares no coast.
Foam floods our homes.
Cities drown in the rising tides.
Our right to a clean environment
and a livable world:
stripped away.
Gagging on salt water,
we gasp for help.
But it is too late.
ii.
We saved our planet from catastrophe.
Fifty years ago, the scientists forewarned us,
their graphs going up, up, up shocked us awake.
We listened to the activists,
to the students in the streets on Fridays.
We promised to make change
so that they would have a future.
The politicians, finally listening to the people,
dipped their pens in solidarity, signed legislation
to protect this place we call home.
We saved our planet from catastrophe.
For fifty years, we progress.
We divest, harnessing the might
of the sea that we once gave the cold-shoulder,
channeling the wind, waves, and tides,
cutting emissions in half,
powering our world by energy that can be renewed.
The ailing ocean grows stronger every day
as we nurse it back to life.
The atmosphere clears and all is blue again.
Our right to a clean environment
and a livable world:
protected.
We will not stop fighting to preserve, to conserve.
Having made the change, we now have hope
that it is not too late.
