Preaching To The Choir

Water is life, and clean water means health." Audrey Hepburn

the river is rusted

sordid and polluted

grubby and foulsome

choked, clogged and contaminated

filthy and funkified

how did it get this way

who did it

when did they do it

why did they do it

its tears are what flows

there is no tomorrow

no memory

only today

i'm sorry

i forgot what else i was going to say

Author's Note

"The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell." - Thoreau

Reviews

[Relic]

There's a tiny canal with a small overpass above it. Deer travel through it and have to navigate around the shopping cart someone mindlessly through in. Ignorance is like a poison we drink and don't wake up to until we're in later years and appreciate more. There's so much unfairness and injustice in this world.

[Pete]

those who don't respect nature won't truely respect anything - probably a lot more than you or i could count. sick workd and getting sicker.

[Gee]

As you rightly say to Relic it is definitely an ailing world and there seems no end to this sickness. God help the generations that follow us!

[Pete]

couldn't agree more my friend.

[MsJewel]

We are polluting our waters, polluting each other with nastiness and sickness...it is dreadful. I feel the sadness in your words. :) Julie

[Pete]

a sad state of affairs for sure. people aren't thinking rationally. guns and school shootings, don't even get me started.

[Green]

It is one of those things that though it might seem to benefit you at first eventually turns on you. Polluting the water around you is about like poisoning your own well, just with less immediate consequences in some cases.

[Pete]

we live in a sick world.

[Vol]

Pete,
Well, this is weird, I wrote a poem TODAY about much the same thing... I remember when I was in high school in the sixties and we were just becoming aware of what our numbers and pace of life were gong to do to civilization. Now we know.
Vol

[Pete]

i remember in the seventies when people would just throw trash out of car windows. everything is out of control. even as a kid i knew that it wouldn't end well.

[Vol]

Yeah, we began to see that while in High School in the sixties... I guess we spent all our altruistic energies back then and have lost our hope for a world of peace, love, and rock-n-roll.

[Pete]

people would say,, "oh, who cares, we'll worry about that some other day." well that day is now. we should all be concerned.

[Vol]

Actually, we are, don't you think... but we are far from logical in our approach to any of our issues these days...

[Pete]

now everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence. How can there be Artificial Intelligence when we've never had the real thing?

[Vol]

HAHAHA! I know, right? It would seem that we've got a big ZERO in that department... And proof that there can be LESS THAN NOTHING, BECAUSE IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is amazing....we aren't just polluting our waters, we are polluting our country with chaos and hateful language.
we need to clean up the river...so the current flows smoothly with all of us carried together by it.

j.

[Einstein Noodle]

interesting closing Sir Pete! :) ... looking only at the problem lends to feeling helpless to solve it .. answering your poems questions has solutions written into them ... us Earthlings have a very real and stubborn problem with out water ... lots of things are already done but we certainly have room to improve and protect .. strong voice says i!
E.

[Arundass TP]

Excellent writing touched my heart. This poem flows like water in a river. Great

[Patricia Wedel]

dear Pete.. we will meet by the River of Life.. where Beavers once again will be Brave and protect our Earth. All the Children will be delivered to a Safe Environment … Amen.. Pat

[John the Baptist]

You said all that need be said about too many of our rivers.