Part of the Problem

So this is Earth Day, and what have we done? Of three sixty-five, we've given her just one. The traffic still drowns the birdsong twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day, but who hears anything while they sleep? Or sees anything while awake? Who sees the razing of the living to construct the dead? And who doesn't call that progress, a Leading Economic Indicator? Who sees a cyclist, even after he's run over, or a car carrying at least two people? Who sees a tree erect and not a house behind it? Are there more birds in the air, or just not enough trees to go around? The road to Nowhere is paved with dead animals. When we can no longer go avoid them we'll get used to the smell of the feathery, furry carpet beneath our wheels as easily as the fetid gray blanket falling upon our heads. My heart is broken, tired of the wanton ignorance of humanity, tired of believing it will get what it deserves, for as long as it gets what it takes it will believe it's getting what it deserves. I awake early in the morning with anxiety to hear the birds tell the world what it's missing, what it's killing; then, in half an hour, I'm lullabied back into a fitful sleep by the mantric susurration of burdened rubber on asphalt.