Mother Earth

How could the world mourn her own death while living?

She cries rainbowed, glossy tears that flow into the ocean

She breathes in air only to exhale smoke

She sees her children among her dancing in-between red eyes that became sore and blurry from all of the wiping away of trees

Her mourning began at her birth, for she always knew her fate that she was not the center of the universe. She was at peace with that.

She knew that her children of animals, bugs, sea critters, and humans were both beauty and her demise.

Her mourning didn't last long, only about 437 million years until the humans began their wars and quarrels over pieces of her body.

Then the anger started.

She flicked her wrist as if shooing away a bad thought and swept up tsunamis and hurricanes

Her intentions were never to destroy her children but rather hold them back from her inevitable conquering.

She had danced and played with the dinosaurs and mammoths, and whales.

She didn't consider the threats of the other. Quickly, an asteroid pummeled its way into her and changed her. She was happy to start over fresh with creating an animal with more intelligence. But who was she but a good neighbor? So she asked her friends, the sun, and the moon for their opinions.

The sun was very against the creation of humans, for she also loved the earth. So she was wary about introducing more children when the heartbreak would repeat.

The moon, on the other hand, didn't have much of an opinion on the matter.

And so the earth, with the help of the sun, watched on as humans took and took and took from her. The earth didn't understand, she had given life, a whole new world, a beautiful world. She thought that she had prolonged her death. And she did adore humans.

The same humans that made rivers run red with blood, created wars over spices and other stupid humanly stuff.

But they felt an ownership over her, and like others, the earth became a slave to them.

And so, some continued to worship her and be her voice. Others kept taking.

But she was beautiful, and that's what mattered, right? Or at least that's what human males often thought. That the pretty things remained with fencing surrounding it.

As for what was already stolen, well, that was a lost cause. Men had already made those stolen lands too hideous for her to bare.

So what was next? As she did before, she flicked her wrist and started anew once again.

Eager and excited with that childlike joy to start, and the sun sighed.

— Marissa Sisk 1/23/25