Montage of Protests: from Capitol to Groundswell
Animal Rights Poetry By Lynne Goldsmith From All-Creatures.org

Love is “She’s dead, she’s dead.”
“F*** you,” says another protester
as an iceberg slips
into another ocean
warning
of fires to come
temperatures rising
more carbon and aerosols
scientists knowing the numbers,
actions, permafrost thawing
as in another trampled upon,

how life goes on
to annihilate
muffling

“F*** you, she’s dead!”
for how we move on
toward
mass extinction,
home of corpses,
congeries of
insects, animals
pesticides, pollution
of light (artificial in the night)
to agriculture, nitrification
for livestock
the taking down of trees
and shrubs gone the beetles
and butterflies, bees
and flies of all kinds
we are losing

Earth’s birds and reptiles,
amphibians and mammals,
marine life,
keeping us in balance
through our hanging

of ecosystems
needed: species’ survival
in that nothing small or despised
doesn’t matter,
isn’t inconsequential

the protests for MAGA,
Proud Boys, QAnon,
Neo-Nazis demanding returns
to Oath Keepers reemphasizing

look at how we’re destroying—
reclaiming
what was never ours—

no owning of the earth,
its waters, creatures, land,
people—

we’re not keepers
of entitlement
slipping through our fingers
but protectors
given the honor

of “Please can you listen,”
we share and need each other—

on this our way to extinction.

©Lynne Goldsmith, 2021

Image by Skeeze from Pixabay