Where have they gone?

Author: Stacey Yount
Word Count: 232
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Where have they gone?
The birds, the animals, and the places
I used to see.

I am Gaia,
I walk the earth but no one sees me.

Each of my steps is a day
To those who inhabit this world
A year’s wheel it takes to traverse my path,
Their home, Mother Earth.

When my path returns me
To a place I stepped before,
There are beloved things absent
That my heart and eyes used to see.

I miss the bird, Po’ouli who was my friend.
Faded from Maui, I never will hear his happy chittering
Or see his brown and grey beauty again.

I miss the old forests that were my resting place:
The leaves have fallen away,
Never to return in Spring.

I miss the dazzling arctic ice that gave me drink,
It is crumbling and soon more of my friends,
Like the big white bear, will cease to be.

Where have they gone?

I am Gaia,
I walk the earth but no one sees me.

If the people of the world could see what I see,
The destruction their living, their greed,
Does to the planet that sustains them,
They would weep, as I weep.

I cry to the world Waken, See -
Before the blessed gift
Of the place where they exist
Has all been used up.

And they will say
Where has it all gone?

By Stacey Yount