The Winds of Time keep blowing —ever fiercer and more warm:
With Climate Change — plus Roundup —is this not The Perfect Storm?
We’ve heat waves, droughts, and floods, and storms; fire devastation, too.
How much more can Mother Nature stand before she bids “Adieu”?
It’s time that we must ask again where all the flowers have gone,*
but our query needs an update with this title for the song:
Where Have All the Species Gone?” The Frogs, Bats, Birds and Bees?
Why, they’ve gone to their Last Roundup — like the Coral, Toads, Crops, and Trees!
We have “Bee Hive Collapse” and “White-Nosed Bats,” endangered Monarchs too.
Then add “opportune infections” (like the Covid) to the brew.
We get: arthritis, kidney, liver ills, heart, gut, dementia, too.
Count canine and feline cancers, shaking palsy in the queue.
But despoiling bodies, minds, and lives: Man’s way is not HIS way!
Turns out, Mankind is not so kind! God’s surely in dismay.
We must curtail the fossil fuels — and spraying Roundup, too —
or those who manage to survive will keen: “They KNEW!” They KNEW!”
Author’s note: In the original 1955 song by Pete Seeger, the flowers had all gone to graveyards.
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Tonia Kalouria is retired language teacher and actress, now emotes electronically from NE Ohio. Her works are included in “Quoth the Raven,” “A Glass of Wine With Edgar,” “Poems from the Lockdown,” “Evermore,” “Purr and Yowl,” “Nothing Ever Happens in Fox Hollow,” “Society of Classical Poets X,” “Younker,” “Thriving,” “Love Vol 4” (Lifespan). She has poems in The Literary Vegan, littleoldladycomedy.com, Take 5ive, Lighten Up!, and The 5-2, among others.
