| Environment

Hear Our Plea: Sincerely, Your Future

Inspired by Prince Ea’s “Dear Future Generations, Sorry”, the following poem is a letter addressed to all of us from those in the coming decades.

By David Lee, 13 October, 2021

Dear Past Generations,

I think I can safely say, that I speak for my brothers and sisters, if I may

When I say to you, hear our plea

From the future, I come in peace

I first came here to receive your generation’s apologies

Through the words of the wise Prince Ea, you said “I’m Sorry.”

But you know what, I decided not to accept it

No, your lame excuses would not do anything to correct it

Hear our plea,

I once knew a boy and a girl, happily married

Burdened with a unhappy decision to carry

Or not to carry a second baby

Why? You might ask

And I know you can’t see it yet, but you see

They had lost their first child already

For they lived in a time when war was raging

Mother Nature turned against us sons and daughters, everyday we were fighting

Against the derechos that swept the remaining trees

Against the hurricanes that churned our seas

And droughts that left one pound of food to feed

The mouths of ten billion homo sapiens in need

In this future age of anthropocene we could barely believe

The stupidity of the so-called wise men

The past men that used nature like a credit card

To strike rich today, and deal with the repercussions another day

Hear our plea,

You may start to see 

Why they had no choice to carry a second baby

But to carry on with their lives because your generation had decided their future already

A fixed conclusion to our story

One sprouted from the consequences you tried to bury

Hear our plea, and trust me when I say it was your blood money

That led them to bury their starved firstborn and prevented their second child from ever being born

And you want to know something?

The hard truth is,

Those dead and unborn grandchildren, were yours

Hear our plea, 

We have suffered too long in this land with dead trees

The towering seas that go on daily killing sprees

Let us breathe in a world not full from your toxicity

Let us live in a world not filled with disease

Let us eat the nature you planted, and not stole

From Mother Nature who cried into your souls

Slumbering in pain from this virus of humanity

And while you thrive in the dawn before her awakening

We will barely survive the doomsday when she wakes to release her rage 

As a reminder of your deeds for the next 1000 centuries

We refuse to be burdened with your unfinished apology

For you wrote an incomplete letter

You said no words promising to accept your responsibilities

Showed little motivation to retreat from your carbon footsteps

And live the testament of change our generations needed to see

I ask you why you stopped right after “I’m Sorry,” tell me please!

Hear our plea

You can be the solution, not the problem

Let me put in terms of the COVID pandemic in your reality

Believe the scientists when they say that small doses of an illness can become the treatment

This generation can become the vaccine to this Climate Crisis

Prove us wrong and bulldoze not our trees,    but your mentality

Stop saying that destruction is progress, 

When in fact just one more step

Will drive us off the cliffs, to our deaths 

Mark my words, this will be your ultimate future plea, 

So hear it now when your future cries, Please

Believe

That you wield the power to change this current course of humanity

Warming your hearts and hands we must hold together in Global harmony

Change our minds to fight against this Climate Crisis from rising two degrees

And CARE to see the day when Mother Nature will cry no more 

From our deadly plague of environmental unsustainability

Because then, and only then

Will I truly hope you can erase this plea from ever existing

And prevent these final words from ever being… 

Sincerely,

Your Future

David Lee is an author and frequent contributor for Young Patriots Magazine.