The earth seemed to shake
It shook as if to tell me to stop, to quit it.
I couldn’t feel it of course.
Once I did it again,
the earth gave a small tug
A little whip up at me
In agony
In quite possibly, pain.
I almost felt it that time.
I did it again though.
Cause that’s what humans do.
As I dropped a simple wrapper,
From my absolute favorite candy bar.
The earth cracked from below me.
If it had hands, they’d whip up and stop this.
The hands would brush trash after trash off the Earth.
Making it prosper again.
Those hands would tug at my pant leg,
As if in annoyance, to irritate me.
But they would steer my eyes to the ground below me.
Trash at the tip of my toe, and garbage cans overflowing into street corners.
The hands knew the urgency, they just needed help.
The hands longed to be there,
to be real.
To help the Earth clean up
At least just a bit.
Cause we all know, humans can’t feel it
They choose not to listen
to those shakes from below
They are blind to the trash by their feet.
Those signs we ignore, the hands would feel.
Poem by August Muñoz.