Industry
Let Asia to do the dirty work,
provide the goodies, get polluted.
It has cheap labour, man-power
know-how and space.
Plenty of forests to turn to cattle ranch
or palm oil plantations,
waterways to dam, resources to mine.
- and seem to want the glitter we got
or to cleverly better it...
Industry?
Ah, we, in this neck o’ the woods
have done that, been there already;
set up the ghastly precedent,
paved the way
reaping the benefit of coal, oil, servitude
- with, shhh! those tiresome after-effects
- unforeseen we swear
(blinded by the short term gains,
fancy fortunes to be made);
those consequences of Empire,
of rape and greed
that decimate, destroy and poison
entire bodies, oceans, air and soil.
Wreak havoc with seasons and cycles,
disrupting electromagnetic fields,
base temperatures and eco-balance.
Fine reward! Dire warning!
But we have all the savvy to move on:
start afresh, with nice new tech.
Clean up our own little patch
putting out tenders for the manufacturing
to those useful foreign parts
and so keep our bit of sky clear.
Huh?
Like saving our skins:
nurture, vaccinate, feed, our (voting) people
then, if any leftovers, they can have it.
The rhetorical lies and false promises
of fear and all those isms. Us v. them.
And forgetting the sky is one,
The waters, one.
Mankind, one.