I gave you your very life and breath
Nursed you from the fathomless womb
Islands of your fragile existence surrounded by the purest waters
Shaded you from the scorching sun with green living wings
All around you signs of my undying love
Soon you grew tall and strong
Fed on the fruit of reason
And proposed that if there must be good
Then there must be evil
And if there must be life
Then there must be death
You fancied yourself the Master of the Scales
Balance was yours to decide and impose
You raised the hands that you did not create
Against everything I built up for your sake
Iron and stone became the grail
And what once was to help was now to hurt
Nature and creatures who were to be your allies
Were now your targets
Unwitting enemies marked for extermination
Progress became the whore of your greed
Civilization is anything but civilized
Secrets stolen from my molten core
You murdered your brothers for their imagined worth
My skin crawls at the thought of your inhumanity
And thousands die in the quake which results
Their blood is on your hands along with my own
Thick and black and priceless in your eyes
But yet you still manage to put a tag on it
The fangs of your oil rigs violating me at every turn
Obliterating the witnesses of your destruction
They cry out against you from the air and the sea
You do not hear them for you don’t speak their language
But I hear them
You tear down their shelters to force them into non-existence
As you do with all those who refuse to bow to tyranny
But even dogs know not to soil where they sleep
I gave you everything that was good and beautiful and pure
And gently placed you in the midst of it all
And what a mess you have made of my work
Remember what you have heard since your youth
I brought you into this world and I will take you out
Nutrisco et Extinguo
I was your beginning and I will be your end
Alpha and Omega
Ashes to Ashes
Dust to Dust
I am the Mistress of the Scales
And balance is mine to decide and impose
When you find yourself buried beneath the rubble and waste
You will understand what disgrace you have caused me
How tired you have made me
And I will have my much deserved rest
And when you are finally silent and still
I will raise your younger brother
To inherit what you so carelessly threw away
And he won’t even remember your name
And then we shall see indeed
Who has the last word
March 2003