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Monday, August 09, 2021

GOODNIGHT EARTH

a cautionary tale, a cry from the heart,
by Buff Whitman-Bradley

after Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown


“Goodbye Earth” by Satovi at Deviant Art.


The fires, floods and extreme weather seen around the world in recent months are just a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold, scientists say, as the world’s leading authority on climate change prepares to warn of an imminent and dire risk to the global climate system. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will on Monday publish a landmark report, the most comprehensive assessment yet, less than three months before vital UN talks that will determine the future course of life on Earth. —The Guardian, August 8, 2021


Goodnight Earth
So blue and white
We’re sad to leave
Your days so bright
And starlit nights

Goodnight Earth
We cannot say
We did our best,
Now there’s no way
That we can stay

Goodnight raging forest fires
Goodnight rising seas
Goodnight melting glaciers
Goodnight honey bees
And so much more than these

Goodnight to the children
Who never breathed clean air
Who ate contaminated food
And didn’t have a prayer
Of a world that was fair

Goodnight to those who fought
For justice and equality
A return to wiser ways
Of diversity and sanity
And universal community

Goodnight friends and loved ones
Goodnight plants and beasts
Of our little planet 
That we caused to overheat
And otherwise mistreat

We won’t be coming back
We had our chance and blew it
Our story has a moral
But no one left to listen to it
(Or again to misconstrue it?)

So goodnight creek
Good night birds
Goodnight music
Goodnight words

Goodnight window
Goodnight door
Goodnight slippers
On the floor

Goodnight games
Goodnight toys
Goodnight girls
And goodnight boys

Goodnight chair
Goodnight spoon
Goodnight stars
And goodnight moon

Goodnight lark
And owl and thrush
Goodnight old lady
Whisphering Hush

Goodnight Earth


Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poetry has appeared in many print and online journals.  His new book is At the Driveway Guitar Sale from Main Street Rag Publishing.  He podcasts poems on again, memory, and mortality at thirdactpoems.podbean.com and lives with his wife, Cynthia, in northern California.