NPD Poem of the Day – To the Unborn, by Helen Laycock

Liz Brownlee ♦ July 20, 2016 ♦ 4 Comments

Image by Stuart Rankin on Flikr by CC license.

A new message poem in the run-up to National Poetry Day, by Helen Laycock:

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To the unborn

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Sorry is not enough of an apology

for what you are about to receive

upon your birth –

a broken Earth

whose bones we have picked

and whose flesh we have stripped.

We bequeath you: the carcass.

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Please forgive our hatred

of our brothers and sisters,

how our minds

wrongly defined

the miracles that we are –

that singular bond amongst the stars.

You inherit: our dysfunction.

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Our tears were not enough to wash

away the blood of creatures savaged

for egos and trinkets

as they stopped to drink

from water holes and, shy,

lay beneath the punctured sky.

We leave you: their memory.

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Frozen in the now, too late we saw the melt;

ice caps will be your legends

like polar bears

and unsullied air.

From space, no green, just scars…

We clawed our world sparse.

We endow you with: ruin.

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You are the wardens, the short-changed, the healers.

Please clear up the debris

of greed and decay.

We were led astray.

We looked away and heard

messages we preferred.

We pass on: our regret.

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© Helen Laycock

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