Poem I Wrote in 1980 Rings True To This Day

Our Chemical Children

We're all killing ourselves
No love above those chemicals
Dumping slime in our backyards
What we need are full-time guards!
To protect our animals, trees and soil
From corporations dumping their sludge and oil
CEOs are killing our children
Companies are killing our gardens
And our newborn, so very ill
Chemicals necessitating an early will
Our environment slowly sliding down
All the corporations do is fool around
Green money is their crown and and main concern
Browned land ain't good enough to burn
As I walk through sludge, sticks, slicks and slime
I remember my beautiful meadow, those good times
Flowers, colors--my children content
They cashed in on our land, and it's all spent
Restore our greenery from a now brown mound!
I beg God to help, please hear our sound
If not, we too, soon will die
As corporations sneak around thinking they're sly
God will only help if we help ourselves
Make an effort, come down from special shelves
Greed and grotesque dreams are their lives
Do they think of their children and their wives?
In our shoes and on our land of scum and mud
Are their children playing in the same chemical crud?
Does their conscious even bother you?
Have they all forgotten that a normal sky is blue?
Has the hue $lowly, $urely $tarted turning green?
Mine has already turned red from all I have seen.

August 22, 1980
(C) 1983 Library Of Congress