Thursday 16 November 2017

Dust Bowl on t.v.

by Karen Friedland


Look what you did,
fools!

You ripped up my protective coat—
15 inches of Buffalo grass—
and killed all the buffalo, too,
while you were at it.
You left my bare body exposed
to the wind and drought
which blew it away.

You killed the coyote
that kept the jack rabbits in check,
and then you killed them too, with sticks,
when, famished,
they ate the only green things left.

You killed your own cattle
when all you had to feed them was tumbleweed.
And then came the grasshopper plague
which you treated with poison, of course
and then the dead and dying children—
truly, it was biblical.

Proving once again
that every little thing
affects every single thing,
and you can truly count on humans
to destroy that chain,
over and over again.


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