1

In every river, lake and sea, the clearest water;

The bluest skies, the postcard sunsets; nothing rarer;

And air so pure we breathe it in with quiet wonder

For just one brief, abnormal moment, unforeseen,

An unexpected pause, a human quarantine,

And nature flourished all across the urban scene.

Meanwhile an Indian chieftain cultivates the old ways,

Restoring wisdom to delay our fate on Doomsday.

A pale-faced fascist in the world’s largest superpower,

Alternate facts in the attempt to overpower,

As virulent as this pandemic of denial,

All to hasten the Countdown to our Ultimate Hour.

2

When will we learn to understand there is a difference

Between the man who uses land to make him billions,

And those who live off Mother Earth for their subsistence?

We lack the strength to change because of selfish fears,

We’ve killed off half our animals in fifty years,

And glaciers melting as our coastline disappears.

And in the so-called “shithole countries” that you underpay

They’re still out working to unwind the clock of Doomsday.

Civilization is a Western word for power

Supposed evolution of the “rational”

They strip the Earth of precious riches to devour

Speeding us through the Countdown to our Ultimate Hour.

3

When will we learn to make decisions that are logical

 As market forces overwhelm the ecological?

Pandemic economics of the virological.

We are not all-important or exceptional

Our species broke biodiversity and how

The human race is parasitic on us all.

Meanwhile the refugees arrive from every thruway,

They raise their voices to set back the clock of Doomsday.

The landowner whose vast estate is colonial,

The cattle rancher using means industrial,

Environmental racism and White Power,

Ever faster the Countdown to our Ultimate Hour.

4

The prospect of human recovery feels cynical

When gas emissions have already reached their pinnacle

And demolition of the Amazon is criminal.

“Apocalypse Now” of the twenty-first century

In which the global average temperature cannot reach

Above the limit of just one point five degrees.

Meanwhile a scientist is synthesizing insights,

Emiting warnings we’re at one minute to midnight.

When global warming is expensive? Denial!

Petroleum is cancerous, so what, just drill!

Disciples of the ultra-neoliberal,

Speeding us through the Countdown to our Ultimate Hour.

5

How long before we realize our vanity?

Unfettered growth despite our mediocrity,

The rate of poverty shows our perversity.

Without disrupting social inequality

Our carbon footprint swells in its absurdity

And no well-being in this “new normality.”

Meanwhile an activist who closes down the freeway,

Radical protest to unwind the clock of Doomsday.

A corporation multi-, pan-, trans-national

That lobbies an environmental senator

Who bribes the illegal land grabbers running wild

All to hasten the Countdown to our Ultimate Hour.

6

In this dramatic moment of profound disruption

To mourn the needless deaths from this viral contagion,

I’m haunted by the specter of fatal mutations

A worldwide genocide from willful ignorance

An evil use for artificial intelligence

And cyberwarfare with a nuclear consequence.

So if, indeed, we’re only here to live for today,

I’m singing anthems to set back the clock of Doomsday.

To reconnect with Mother Earth, a sacred honor,

To get acquainted with my own ancestral power,

To feel the jubilance of living, after all,

Turning backward the Countdown...

Turning backward the Countdown... to our Ultimate Hour.