Maybe, Just Maybe

What if, for example,

the Earth wants us to learn
what it feels like
to have her grasp of life
squeezed out from under her?
Her blood—the waterways
clogged with plastic and slime,
her lungs—the forests
cut clear without concern,
her life force—the soil
denatured and damaged
with pesticides and mono-cropping,
her micro-systems—animals and fish, birds and bees
endangered or killed.
All her life-giving gifts
and sustainable ways
not being cared for and destroyed.

How would the earth speak to us?
How would she show us she can’t breathe,
that she is dying? How would she talk
so she could be heard?

Maybe, just maybe,
she would show by example.
She would infect our lungs,
squeeze the very breath out of us.
Maybe by way of a virus
that would spread without us knowing,
that would keep people apart,
break economies, immobilize nations,
leave the dying without ceremony,
with no end in sight.
And maybe, just maybe,
she could teach us to work together,
she could help us see
that we are one life
on the brink of destruction,
that we took our greed and carelessness
too far.

And maybe we can wake up
and pool our efforts
and dissolve conflicts and boundaries
for a greater cause —
to save the Earth, to save life,
to save each other.

Maybe, just maybe,
we can listen this time.