Forecast

 

Time is running out, Man,

Noah said when he built his Ark.

It is an assumption that life hung on

 A thread then but time kept running.

Time is running out, Man,

Saint John said in Revelation. For

Millenniums other prophets declared

The images of an Armageddon,

Have warned of earthquakes,

Floods,

Disease,

Falling of stars,

Fire and brimstone

On last judgement’s day.

Heralds of the desert still call

For penance, and yet

Time keeps running.

It seems, the threat is merely

A game, a fairy tale

In a holy script.

But while I recent doomsday’s forecast,

Life’s resources diminish day by day-

Oil slicks cover Oceans and coasts,

Lakes and rivers consume industries waste

As smokestacks, catapult the acid rain into

The still growing land and Millions of

Exhaust pipes enshroud the sun, Pock holes

Into the atmosphere that upturn Heats

And raise water levels to floods, irreversibly

Will strangle this planet into submission.

At the prime of Man’s achievements,

Where Nature reveals itself through calculation,

Books of science open suddenly and Old

Prophecies return like ghosts of haunted places;

Prophecies that sounded like Fairy tales.

Time is running out, Man . . .

Now say computers’ calculations.

Still, I reply I believe when I see it.

Indications are so unexpected none of

The holy signs as trumpets, lightning,

Thunder;

They are not pompous, dramatic, no,

These signs are calm, unassuming,

And scientific: Pollution creeps in like

A thief in the night, weakening,

Decomposing the substance of growth,

While capital and wealth triumphs on

And on, hailing the monument

Of fortune.

Time is running out, Man . . .

One reads, faintly written like

A watermark, in the book of science:

“Life of mankind fifty more years to go . . . ?”

Unless the nuclear,

Our garbage in space

Or nature’s way of asteroids

Will strike first . . . ?

Or

Will time keep running?

                 ***

painting – “Arctic Heat Wave” / 1996 / JR.