Mother Earth

Mother Earth

A Story by Jim Walters

To be at one with our Earth in my opinion is merely to understand her and give her the love and respect she deserves.

I saw a bumper sticker in a store once that had a colored picture of our Earth on it. Following the planet’s contour were the words “Love Your Mother”. I thought the play on words was pretty cool so I bought the thing and glued it onto the back window of my old work truck.

LOVE YOUR MOTHER . . . I wonder how many people would treat their birth mother the way they treat their Earth mother. If they did I wonder how long it would take before birth mother tossed the brat out the upstairs window and smashed his ignorant head on the sidewalk.

Not many I suppose, for as a rule birth mothers are quite long suffering when it comes to their children. She is willing to take a huge load of s**t from little Johnnie before she reacts and even then it’s usually a few pats on the behind and a time out in the kitchen corner.

Well, when it comes to our Earth mother, at least since the Industrial revolution when little Johnnie really began giving her a hard time, she has been quiet and long suffering when it comes to disciplining him.

How long she is willing to hold back the paddle is anybodies guess, but today I find myself looking around for a place to hide because once Earth mom gets riled she can really raise holy hell, and not just on the deserving brat either. Everybody in the house gets a piece of the action once she goes over the edge and starts swinging.

Like a lot of kids I grew up knowing mom was always going to be there for me. She would feed me, clothe me and protect me without question, even give me some cash some time when I asked, that’s just the way it was. She was my mom, that’s what moms do.

One day, long after I moved out on my own, I came back to visit mom and saw that she was not getting around so good. Her hair had grayed and she was beginning to forget stuff. I was kinda shocked cause my mom was invincible in her youth. Nothing I did bothered her much and she always had a way of making things better and easier for me. Now, for the first time I realized that the times had changed and I would need to start taking care of her as she was running low on energy.

Our Earth mom has the same problem today as my birth mom had then. She has not said a whole lot about the callous treatment, but the last hundred years or so have been very hard on her and it’s beginning to show.

If you understand this “oneness” you can actually feel her pain. As you watch the oil spill into the gulf you can visualize the internal bleeding as it floods her womb and slowly destroys the birthing place of her entire creation.

As you watch the coal companies in Appalachia scalp her mountains you see the ugly scars left behind and you feel her pain.

All over her Earth rampant destruction is taking place as one country after another rapes and pillages our mother in search of the minerals she has hidden within her soil.

It’s sickening to sit and watch. I sat and watched my birth mother die a horrible death. Stroke had left her unable to speak, or eat, or even drink. She lay that way for ages it seemed before she gave a huge final sigh . . . and died. I don’t want to see my Earth mother go the same way, but unless there is a huge shift in our thinking it’s inevitable that some day, perhaps after we deplete her ozone, she also will shudder and burn up in the heat of the sun. Of course this time she takes her children with her.

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© 2010 Jim Walters


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you have a folksy charm to the way you present important and wise things

Posted 14 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

I like this perspective, hate the omen.
But it is true I suppose, and actually, I am thinking she will be here on and along while our civilizations rise and fall like slow blades of grass.

Posted 14 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.


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Added on August 30, 2010
Last Updated on August 30, 2010

Author

Jim Walters
Jim Walters

OH



About
been an airborne soldier...been a hippie . . . been a religious nut . . . been an Alaskan fisherman and off season bush rat . . . been a carpenter/home builder. Am a husband . . . a painter . . . .. more..

Writing
Enough Enough

A Poem by Jim Walters