in 1988 they said - there's a hole in the sky!
we're all going to die!
but by then we were hardened to
warnings: we'd grown a carapace.
for years we'd been going to die
at any moment: blown sky-high. so what?
and now the planet's broken?
sure. we've done our worst,
we deserve to reap the whirlwind.
but it's those others i hear:
their hooves thudding into extinction.
furred and scaled and feathered, winged and finned:
accusing us: we're as sentient as you!
this is our world, too!
but if i say - we're taking the others with us!
we deserve to die but they don't!
you ask - which others? and look at me
as if this extinction business
has tipped me over the edge.
no; i am as sane as cold water.
when we have killed ourselves and all the others,
the hot poisoned wind will bear away
the guilt we cannot bear to own,
and our name will be a hissing on that wind.
