Grandma, Grandma come and look,
The ground is covered with green in this old book.
There's people at the ocean on a sandy beach,
and the trees are taller than even you could reach.
What is this place that's on these pages?
Oh, my darling child, I haven't seen this in ages.

Long ago, before the wells ran dry,
before the air was thick, before the sun scorched the sky,
there were carpets of grass that grew around every home.
They were watered from the sky and grew on their own.

But Grandma, I thought the ground was too hot,
that anything grown there would die and would rot?
Not back in those days, my innocent child,
the grass would grow for unending miles.

The sun was gentler then because the Earth filtered its rays.
Children could even go out and play, during the day!
But Grandma, look here! They're playing in the sea.
They’re smiling and laughing, how can this be?

My darling, back then you could go to the ocean and just walk in.
There were no chemicals that would eat at your skin.
At the beach we’d build castles of sand and jump in the waves.
It was nothing like the acid shores of today.

But these trees, Grandma look! They’re impossibly tall.
How are they standing? Why don’t they fall?
My dear they had deep roots, like fingers, gripping straight down.
They reached into the Earth, gathering nutrients, from deep underground.

Their trunks grew so wide, so thick and so strong,
We’d climb on their branches, like monkeys, all day long.
The Earth was so beautiful then, so vibrant, so alive.
Back then we could live, not just survive.

But Grandma, what happened to places in these books?
This isn’t at all how my Earth looks.
My dear, I wish I could tell you the one answer, one fact.
But the truth is much worse, it was a failure to act.

You see, people liked their comfort, and at first it was slow;
Burgers and bottled water and coffee to go.
Big trucks gathered our trash, our wrappers and plastic bags,
And carried it off, far, far away.

With the trash out of sight, we ignore all the signs .
The rising heat, melting ice-caps – we told ourselves things were fine.
But the Earth isn’t subtle, and the changes were vast.
There was no time to change, it all happened so fast.

First came the seas, rising quick and high.
People on the coast had to leave to survive.
Whole cites were buried, beneath watery graves.
Entire coastlines were redesigned by the sea’s mighty waves.

The expansion of the oceans allowed for stronger storms,
And before we knew it, monster hurricanes formed.
The islands of paradise were wiped from existence.
There was nothing we could do; we could offer no resistance.

Next came the forests, and their life-giving breaths,
Burned to the ground, leaving behind only ash and death.
With no shade to cool the soil, the rainforest was gone,
We may have stopped it had we not waited so long.

All over the world, the weather went mad,
We began to mourn the life that we’d had.
The storms and tornados brought cities to their knees,
No one even noticed the disappearance of the bees.

With the pollinators absent, crops failed to thrive,
We found ourselves wondering if we would survive.
With no food and polluted water, disease began to spread,
Before we could blink half the world was either sick or dead.

Governments collapsed and fear spread to all corners of the earth.
Things we’d once valued suddenly had no worth.
It soon became apparent that our carefree days were lost,
It was only then that we realized what our regal excess had cost.

So yes, my darling child, this book is beautiful, it’s true,
But the pictures you see here have been stolen from you.
And now it’s too late, these pages are just a long-lost story,
And for that, my dear child, I am truly sorry.
© Nichole Proctor
© Nikkia4Fun