A Bi-Centenary Poem
Fear no more the heat o' the sun
-its rays are filtered, every one.
The fumes from car-exhausts and fires
from dumps and furnaces aspires
to poison heaven where the bird
sings on a diminished third
or totters from the well-sprayed tree
replete with years and DDT.
Now nature grinds her basic gears,
the big-end knocks, the junk-yard nears…
Now fish float belly-up downstream caught
by chemicals too vague to be fought,
the forests sigh and fall, the hills
blink baldly as the new winds chills,
the gra**lands waver and are gone,
the concrete Nothing blunders on,
black gold fountains to the sky,
the sands are mined, the sea-coasts die,
the land runs ruin to our pride!
Lord, give us, for our patricide,
two hundred more years like the last
and what shall then withstand the blast?