SUSTAINABILITY

      Our old dream was prosperity for all,
      which meant we’d get to buy a lot of stuff,
      but now we need another dream that small
      is beautiful and little is enough.

      Not so austere, perhaps, as was Thoreau
      on Walden Pond, his lifestyle simplified,
      attending to his bean vines row by row,
      his spiritual needs wholly supplied.

      Yet one by one, we need to change our culture,
      wise up to what will save us from despair
      and emulate the sparrow, not the vulture,
      treating the world with kindness and with care,

           Acknowledging our culture now’s insane,
           our new imperative must be: “Sustain!”

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