NATURE Poem: I’ll Begin Again, by Devin Reese

These smart primates have surprised me
with the way they dream up changes
and bring them about with nimble fingers,
grasping tools hewed from all the materials
found from my surface deep into my crust,
living plants and flowing water cobbles,
metals made molten a million years ago,
rocks compressed as I shift and groan,
metamorphosing into marbles and schists,
coy crystals sparkling in my crevices,
and oily remains of carboniferous plants.
These humans find them all, exploring
in packs, swarming over my surfaces,
diving into my most turbulent waters,
shimmying into my caves and up my mountains,
oddly undaunted by my proudest features.
The humans chop, peel, spill, poke, shave,
pluck, tear, gore, mash, and mutilate me
beyond recognition. Yet, inside, I remain the same,
steadfast in my core and buffered by my mantle,
the human attentions only skin-deep.
When the people are gone someday, finished
with trying to shape me to their favor,
having extracted and exhausted
the resources they need,
I will still be humming along, dancing circles
around my Sun, and sending bursts of magma
to my surface, doing my own kind of play,
making new rocks and rivers and rainbows,
remembering how clever the people were, yet
so short-lived against my four and a half billion years.

Author: poetryfest

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