To My Future Child

Take my love and this burning world

As your inheritance, my love.

What remains is yours.

 

We were all once quiet babies,

Abandoned in a dumpster

By the wrinkled gods 

 

Of industry and politics

Who pissed our planet’s riches 

Up against the wall.

 

Force a handshake, pocket the cash, 

The future’s not his problem,

Walk away grinning.

 

But unlike the prodigal son 

None shall weep upon their neck 

When they return home.

 

A disenfranchised love, my love,

Is all I can leave behind,

Please forgive me.

 

And forgive the pallid question

Hanging in the sickly sky,

Orange-stained with smoke;

 

Should we have given you this breath

Choked and smoky as it is,

Knowing that the earth

 

Cannot sustain those that are here?