Hearing the Earth

Eternity is easy.
God is self-evidently so.
You are God.
Who else could you be?
And so, as Krishna said,
you were never born,
and you are already dead.

But then again,
it seems like we are still alive…
and still just human–
but in our finitude,
we rise morally above any completely transcendent God
when we as humans love despite our knowledge of death.
We are not just human;
we are just because of our humanity.
Can God die for love?
Only by becoming human.

Time still tests us.
We still strive.
We don’t understand yet,
but we know we might.

We love because we must,
because the light from the morning sun
is still something we can trust,
and because maybe one day
for daughters and sons
the clouds will not rain acid
and the rivers will run free of city pipes.

But today the earth is dying.
Humanity may not make it
to the end of this century.
If we are to survive,
we’re going to have to downsize,
to slow down,
to breathe together as neighbors once again.

Nothing is more important
than learning how to EAT without engines.
When the machines die,
only our heads, hands, and hearts
are left to carry the human world forward.
Earth will help us learn to live again,
but I can’t imagine it won’t be painful.

What we’re doing,
what we’re learning to do,
is nothing short of overthrowing
a ten thousand year old land ethic.