Mother Earth,

you bear the burden
of insolent, greedy children
with great tolerance...

so slow to chastise,
you let us burn and pillage
and learn in our own way,
on our own day.

Your gifts, freely given -
we squander and lay waste,
desecrating your image.

we, your children, are blessed
by such bounty, yet show
such a lack of respect -
our gratitude rare.

From within your abundant womb,
we fight amongst ourselves for space -
our weaker siblings forced to barren ground.

From your ample breasts,
we suckle beyond our needs -
never sated, we push away our
weaker siblings, uncaring of their needs.

We suckle till you bleed.

Father Time,

pragmatic father,
your work relentless
as day follows night.

you care not
that your children
look upon you with scorn -
wanting you to come quickly,
then not at all - lusting for the power
of control.

You - silent,
watching birth and withering,
then new stories born,
with unmoved eyes.

untouchable, yet you touch all
with no intimate knowledge,
and no concern.

Such is your mysterious way -
keeping your children in
constant states of unknowing...

our dashed hopes,
unfulfilled dreams -
meaningless things.

You often play the trickster,
turning moments into months
inside our minds - or quickening,

(perhaps laughing as we say,
"We have all the time in the world." -
and then blinking that illusion away.)

You but keep the cycles
of the necessary whole,
balancing the fortunes
too large for children to behold.

Mother Earth, Father Time -
may we, your children, see
the errors we have come to be -

and grow wise!

If we do not learn from history,
how can we hope to grow
worthy of grace?

Two great poems, it's quite difficult to be prolific. "You but keep the cycles of the necessary whole," powerful, powerful line, deserves a poem all its own. Great work, love the pic too. It's wonderful when images and words come together like this.

"Every line means something."
Jean Michel Basquiat

Lovely imagery ... and the bilateral symmetry gives the poem a strong structure to support the silky flow of language.