Socialist Sonnet No. 83

Climate for Change

 

When, three hundred million years ago

Lepidodendra, solar sponges, fell,

They were pressed deep into the earth. A slow

Transmutation from toppled tree to coal,

Petrifying sunshine, eons before

The first human eye looked upon the world

And sought to abate the dark and the cold,

Beginning to dig into nature’s store:

But human industry will have its way.

While those who exploit power for their own ends

Have grown careless of the way profit tends

To determine the climate’s desperate trends.

A choice to be made, socialism’s sense

Or capital’s storm, famine and pestilence.

 

D. A.