Earth’s Black Box

From Down Under peer inside.

A world no secrets left to hide.

Come with me and take a look.

The story now an open book.

As bright light faded and gave way to black;

We turned upside down — came off the track.

Amazing beauty, innocence prevailed.

The earth’s demise because we failed.

Without a clue we sewed the seed,

Then brash irreverence blurred the need

To halt the madness, change the course

While few among us showed remorse.

Through avarice and greed we showed

How meaningless can be life’s road.

When self it seems to matter most

We’ve nothing left that we could boast.

It’s humankind that we lost touch,

What mattered most, did not that much.

With sadness and with great regret

I tell you that the stage was set

For all to watch what we had built

Turn back to dust and rock and silt.

And then they came to help us see

Through smog filled skies what we could be.

The greatest story ever told

Relies upon the young not old.

For years we sat upon a stage

Where wisdom failed to grow with age.

Then they were here to help us see

That life for all meant more than me.

At first their presence barely felt.

When they crawled, we stooped and knelt

To coax them on to take first steps.

Their wisdom grew beyond our depths,

Releasing us from who we were

Our love for them and their future.