TO THE DYING STARFISH

 Something is killing starfish up and down the West Coast and no one knows what.  The cause could be a toxins, a virus, bacteria, manmade chemicals, ocean acidification, wastewater discharge or warming oceans. 

 —USA Today

    How can we live in closer harmony
    With other living beings on this Earth
    Than we do now, so disrespectfully,
    As if no one but we has any worth?

    We’ve thought ourselves the lords and masters of
    A global empire in our entitled sway,
    To rule with cruelty, not treat with love,
    Regardless of our waste and Earth’s decay.

    But some great turning now is requisite:
    First in our kind’s collective consciousness,
    Unkind till now, reformed more meet and fit,
    Inclined not to devour but to bless:

         Thankfully to preserve and manage well
         This habitat where precious creatures dwell.

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