This is for the Weekend prompt at Real Toads – global warming – Imagining a Changing Earth. Brendan’s Scriptorium asks us to write a poem of any length or style to describe a grieving heart, our place in the changing world, etc. You can find the prompt at: http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/07/weekend-challenge-imagining-changing.html I chose the form of haibun for this which is an ancient Japanese poetic style using prose (bun) and haiku (hai). One to three tight paragraphs with a classic haiku at the end to bring attention to the prose is the standard format. Being a bit of a pragmatist, I look at things with a sometimes Japanese outlook and sometimes, a skewed outlook. I don’t see the world changing as we know it as necessarily a bad thing just as change. Mujo is part of the Japanese mentality – change.
A Tale of Heat and Cold: Summer’s Coming
Heat, cold, fire, ice, cooling, melting…We are going through a natural cycle. People talk of a Sixth Extinction and quiver in fear or righteous indignation. Species will die out. Well, species have died out before this. We ponder over old bones and fossils. We put oil in our cars and diamonds on our fingers or in our ears – all of these the remains of species who lived zillions of years ago and died out with whatever climate change was going on at the time. Siberian Elk, Smilodon, Wooly Mammoth – 10,000 BCE, 5,200 BCE, 5,000 BCE died and became extinct and rotted. The earth heated up or cooled down. The Thunder Lizards are a few bones displayed in museums and the Neanderthal is part of a diorama.
Perhaps we will end up devolving. Perhaps a Smildon or Triceratops will again be grazing on tree sized weeds. Perhaps a Wooly Mammoth will again be slogging through the 1,000 year winter. This ending is our fault though. No volcanos erupted, nothing happened to tilt the Earth a degree – we did this ourselves. This may be an unnatural cycle in which we die along with other species and flora. Perhaps we will become the stuff of study by a new race or a bright stone in someone’s ear. Hopefully, they will learn from our mistakes.
summer’s coming – heat
destroys life as we know it –
brave new world ahead
free public domain image
kanzen sakura 
Jul 16, 2017 @ 01:37:08
I think you are right about the world, but it might be humanity that become the dinosaurs… but we know the cause and there are things that we can do.
Jul 16, 2017 @ 03:10:00
lets hope we don’t become a stone in someones ear. A thought provoking write. I like the positivity in……brave new world ahead.
Jul 16, 2017 @ 03:55:44
These words stood out for me: ‘We put oil in our cars and diamonds on our fingers or in our ears – all of these the remains of species who lived zillions of years ago and died out with whatever climate change was going on at the time’. That could be us in the future – echoes of Romeo and Juliet: ‘Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear’, Funny how I never liked diamonds.
Jul 16, 2017 @ 05:40:14
Toni, you speak deeply and sharply to those who worry too much about human survival. Some theorists in the scientific community see civilizations as having very short spans of existence before they blow out. Life may be out there in the universe, but we’re more likely to find planets thriving with life amid the ruins of dead civilizations. Summer’s coming, whether we’re on board or not. Thanks for joining in!
Jul 16, 2017 @ 10:08:14
I feel the temperatures on the rise each year.
Jul 16, 2017 @ 11:35:24
These are my favorites:
“People talk of a Sixth Extinction”
“Siberian Elk”
“The Thunder Lizards”
“tree sized weeds”
“slogging”
“This ending is our fault though. No volcano[e]s erupted, nothing happened to tilt the Earth a degree”
“Perhaps we will become the stuff … or a bright stone in someone’s ear.”
Jul 16, 2017 @ 12:13:22
I do hope something is learned from this. Perhaps that we cant eat, drink or breathe money.
Jul 16, 2017 @ 17:30:43
Yeppers. As stated in Cabaret, money makes the world go around….or so it seems.
Jul 17, 2017 @ 15:00:08
Or arrogance…
Jul 16, 2017 @ 17:14:16
Nature herself presided over the previous 5 and you are right to point put that here in the ‘Anthropocene’ we are the cause.Perhaps we deserve to be taken out.
Jul 16, 2017 @ 17:31:24
I think we mos def need to be taken out.