It hit me tonight as I watched a PBS program on the San Francisco Bay and how human development practically destroyed this national treasure.
I also thought of Rachel Carson and the battle she fought against the indiscriminate use of pesticides.
Then I wondered about all the things we humans have done in recent decades just to be better, brighter, happier, sweeter and more pretty.
Can we try too hard at doing and not enough at being?
What have we done
To get that new TV?
To wash our clothes cleaner
Or burn our lights brighter?
What have we done
To live in bigger houses,
To live out farther
in lots more comfort?
What have we done
To be sure all the germs are dead,
The dogs are shorter and sweeter
The food is prepared faster?
What have we done
To our neighborhood
As we've built taller fences,
Killed every little dandelion
And bumblebee along the way?
What have we done
As we've designed a new world
Different than God's planet
With rivers filled in and hills cut down?
What have we done
As healthcare has become a business
And business has become a person
And a person become just in the way?
What have we done
To our small family farms
Now with no families, no animals
Just machines and endless corn rows?
What have we done
With our children - building fear within
Too scared to play outside,
Too fat to have fun running and hopping?
What have we done
To our schools
Where now the teachers are villains,
No raises, accusations of not doing their jobs?
What have we done
To our leaders,
Now dependent on money for ads
More than constituents who vote?
Life is more than more,
Life is less about better
And more about real.
Life is more than striving
To be better than the other.
Life is about continuation
Of building memories of the simple.
We are all still creatures
Needing the same loving care
Of family, friends and neighbors
Lending a outstretched hand.
Perhaps it's time to take a step to the rear
To meander a little here and there
To stop the doing and look at being
An ancestor to descendents one day.
Will they honor our names
Revere our acts and words?
Will they thank us for saving a planet
From destruction along our way?