The Thief at the Door

by Karen I . Shragg (www.movingupstream.com) 

The thief at the door
Is knocking
But deaf ears respond
Excuses mount
Tethered to fatally flawed notions
That altruism will work
That consumption will be voluntarily eschewed
That an equitable Earth is in store for anyone
On the margins
With this thief at the door
It steals so much more thanIs ever put on its ever-enlarging plate
It has never
Been jailed for its transgressions
Which have not been silent
But which have been silenced
By those who think they stand to gain
With the current system in place
With social justice as its guiding light
The No Vacancy at the Inn sign will never be hung in time
This train takes all prisoners heading for the cliff
Only a handful know is there
This thief takes the poorest first as unjust as that seems
Snagging so many of the 4-legged innocents along the way
And the feathered ones too who earned no privilege being here since dinosaurs left under more natural circumstance
Arrest this thief before they all disappear from the pages of existence
Consumption’s multiplier remains unnamed for we are
Wrapped up in the daily struggles of life, in search of equitable futures
Out of reach because of this thief which has become a monster.
Anesthetized by technology’s wizardry.
The blindness to the thief’s role in breaking nature’s rules
It throws a monkey wrench into all noble actions.
Many scream into the ether not to let in this thief at the door
Destroying our neighborhoods
Decimating our forestsIgniting our landscapes
Drinking our rivers to their last drop
Disrupting any hope of cohesion
As numbers overwhelm & overshoot limits
That were never ours to transgress
OVERPOPULATION.

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