Perhaps

I was feeling melancholic today, looking at plastic bags flapping from tree branches and sniffing the disgusting, traffic-fume-laden air and lamenting the lack of butterflies. When I first came here seventeen years ago, there were so many different species of butterflies, I kept a list. There were stag beetles in abundance and loads of tadpoles in the pond. Now the stag beetles and tadpoles are long gone and as for butterflies, I've only seen three or four. It's so sad. And so I penned this.

Perhaps…

Perhaps, when we are gone,

With our poison sprays, our polluted haze,

The beautiful things will return.

The winged things, the finned things,

The secret, hidden things that crawl and spawn.

Perhaps, when we are gone,

With our warring ways, our destroying ways,

A beautiful peace will dawn

And a silver dove and a winged whale

Will sing a hymn of earth-scars healed and hope reborn.

Perhaps…