Writings by Monty

TODAY'S CANARY

by Monty Cartwright

Altered river flow,
flightless birds below,
hitch-hiking fish,
glacier’s melting snow.

Borrow-spend-consume,
plastic or paper thinking,
suffocating growth,
elbow room shrinking.

Political indifference
religion’s ignorant past,
are we the miner canary
during earth’s last gasp?

COMMENTS: This poem was written with geologian Thomas Berry’s statement in mind - “We are a single community, the planet earth, and we live or die together. There’s no such thing as human advantage. The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. Our relationship with the natural world is not primarily stewardship. It’s primarily rapport, admiration, interaction with, and listening to.”