"Mother,
there were elephants,
But
we haven't got them now,
And
all the rhinos have long gone—
How
did we lose them? How?
Mother, there was teeming life
That
wandered on this earth,
But
now there's just a wasteland—
There
is nothing here of worth.
I'll
never see a tiger, Mother,
Or
hear a lion's roar.
You
couldn't save them, Mother dear,
And
now they roar no more.
And
all those gorgeous forests,
Where
the creatures wandered free,
Are
replaced with palm plantations
And
toxic factories.
Mother,
there were oceans
Where
dolphins jumped and played;
Gigantic
whales and sharks lived there,
But
none of them have stayed.
The
seas are too polluted
With
chemicals and waste.
You
couldn't care enough, it seems,
To
make a better place.
Mother,
there were blue skies once,
And
air that you could breath,
But
the sky is always grey these days,
With
toxins on the breeze.
Do
you see this picture, Mother?
Of
these giant silver-backs?
Like
the chimpanzees beneath,
They're
never coming back.
What's
happened to the world, Mother,
That
you were to bequeath—
A
world stuffed full of creatures
And
clear blue sparkling seas?
Did
you forget to listen?
Did
you forget to see?
Why
have you left me in a world
Where
there's nothing left for me?"
"My
son, I saw the elephants.
I
saw the rhinos too.
It
breaks my heart to see them gone,
Or
only in a zoo.
The
world was green, and full of life
When
I was as old as you.
But
when I grew up, I let it die,
And
left nothing here for you.
The
powerful got greedy.
They
had to have the lot.
They
seemed to think they owned the world,
When
clearly they did not.
So,
when the chips were really down,
And
good intention spent,
The
care we should have taken
With
the world just upped and went.
I
guess we all decided
It
was another's job to do.
We
hoped, but we did nothing,
And
left nothing here for you.
It
wasn't that we didn't care—
It
seemed too much to do,
With
more than we could solve at once
And
live our own lives too.
But
when you look at what we lost,
How
quickly its demise,
We
should, I think, have done much more,
And
I apologise.
These
books, these screens, are all you have
To
tell you of this stuff.
We
lost it all because, my son,
We
didn't care enough."
