An excerpt from a personal spoken poetry writing

 The redwood giants soar into the sky with crowns poking up into the clouds, man stands juxtaposed as insignificant. These biological masterpieces are forces of nature with entire ecosystems nestled amongst their branches and humanity, a species not even native to this land saw at their trunks because we “need” a dining room table. We cut and hack away at their red wood, parasites in their grove with the abominable belief that we are deserving of the right to disrupt their land, their home. Now replace the subject of the redwoods with Indigenous Peoples. Would humanity still weep for their lost home? Would they fall to their knees in agonizing pain as man reflects on the actions of their people displacing an entire culture simply because their existence impeded the colonizer’s capitalistic market gains? Under the guise that imperialists were exploring for the good of their country, the New World was stolen and exploited. Ripping out indigenous populations’ sacred lands right from under their feet with the imprudence to place these aboriginal nations in land cages, settlers continued unfazed. Stranded on alienated islands, floating on barren land they could no longer call home, Indigenous people and their way of interacting within the land were suppressed and deemed uncivilized. However, it is industrialized humanity who is unworthy and undeserving of this land because it is the repercussions of our collective actions that ruined Her. It is mankind who took clear-cutting too far, took imperialism too far, industrialization too far, population too far, pollution too far. Humans have disgraced the Earth through greed, arrogance, ignorance. Blinded by shiny coins our ancestors rushed to the West Coast, trampling breathtaking landscapes all to have a go at the lazy man’s way of getting rich quickly, under the guise of this supposed manifest destiny. Minds shrouded with gluttony we dug deep into the ground for resources that weren’t meant to be released into the atmosphere. Now, this modernized world is dependent on the epic dinosaurs and plants reigning from the Paleozoic era, an era some people refuse to recognize even existed. Because a book with uncredited sources told stories about an omnipotent being who created this amazingly complex world bound by the gravitational pull of the sun, our solar system a speck in the universe that was formed over billions of years, in seven days. People wanted explanations for their purpose on this planet. Perhaps it’s not about knowing everything, but simply understanding the effects of our impacts on the universe. Our purpose is to protect this evolutionary masterpiece and that is the one thing we cannot seem to collectively do. American exceptionalism has become kin to patriotism or rather, chauvinism. While one eco soldier cleans up their hometown beach on the East Coast, a cargo ship dumps pounds of trash into the Pacific Ocean. While one man refuses to consume the sentient life of another being, another man laughs at the inconveniences he believes come from helping save the Earth and multiplies his meat consumption because it’s “easier” and he’s only going to be on this earth a little while longer, right? Because why should our contemporaries care if we won’t be here to watch the Earth burn. Lay witness to Her flooding coastal landscapes because we physically abused Her body to the point that She now weeps for her forsaken livelihood and is drowning in Her misery. Drowning with not even a coral to keep Her company because the water has become too warm, too acidic for such a creature to reside within Her any more. Our society refuses to acknowledge that we are impounding on this globe the ultimate cruel and unusual punishment. There is a resounding cognitive dissonance as we continue to pummel this land with abuses from every angle. A sweet spot nurtured for years by evolutionary adaptations, Earth is a uniquely special habitat of resources.