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Artwork: Fish Portrait 52 by Alex Nodopaka
The End of the Anthropocene
David Sandner
The End of the Anthropocene
David Sandner
When the Ents come marching—Hroom!—
over the clear-cut ground—choking through the smog—
they will not throw down just Orthanc…
When the Morlocks come scratching, clawing from below,
out of the toxic sludge of the poisoned earth,
mutated and irradiated into monsters,
they will not eat only the Eloi…
We run from the Creature we made,
its hand held out to detain us:
we neglect it, and so:
it will glut the maw of death
with all we love…
Our arrogance is our undoing—our stories have already
told us so—
We make nature in our image, preening in self-importance,
asking what we desire, not what we need….
The world will spin another five billion years
and hold us, living or dead, in its embrace.
But the world’s other children: I hear them
stamping, close now, beyond the dying fields
and scratching, scratching, scratching from below.
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