China (you’ve been on my mind)

This Chinese riverbed in the Himalayas should be teeming with life—and water. "The desert creeps farther..." Photo: © Dmitry Pichugin_Fotolia.com

A country full of people

I will never meet.

Some are farmers, others politicians

for the communist government.

Your rivers and lakes

run like sewers

from the west into the ocean,

and can’t be drunk from, nor swum in.

The desert creeps farther

over the workable soil.

Each year there’s less lumber,

but more children to figure.

It’s just a trend we all

have been following.

Population boom without a bust

in a universe we’re told is infinite.

Maybe not for us, though,

maybe not for us.

We’re just another species,

a homo-sapien virus.

We made up laws

that we think matter,

but true laws can’t be disobeyed.

We’ll soon be overpopulated.

When there are no more forests,

no more rivers, no fish or deer,

we’ll have to kill ourselves.

In fact, we’ve already started.