Emerson's Niche

The Earth's End

(c) 1985 by Mark Chadwick

The world has become
A desert without end.
Where there were once
Magnificent buildings of
Marble white stone,
Reflecting glass windows--
There is but rubble.
The oceans themselves
Now devoid of all life
Were once teeming
With thousands of different
Marine species
Swimming about in them--
Now deadly water.
The rain forests of
Latin America,
Once summer green
With the morning mists floating
Above the ground
Like clouds on a mountain--
All is now desert.
The wintry icecaps
Have completely melted.
The high mountains
Have been cut down to low hills
By the constant
Seven miles-a-minute
Hurricane-like winds.
Where there were deserts
Back in the distant past,
There are great glass
Craters, deadly to the touch
In which unseen
Radiation persists,
Lurking there for years.
But what really makes
This world seem so empty
Is the lack of
The animals and people
Whose lively noise
Had kept this world alive.
Every creature--gone.
How did this world go
From so beautiful to
A place so damned?
The answer can be found in
The hatred and
Distrust that one race had
For another one.