A Love Letter to Earth

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My love for you knows no bounds—

Not even Everest could rise high enough to stop it.

The dense green of the Amazon, teeming with life,

May seem impenetrable—

But I would walk its depths without fear, for you.

The Sahara’s searing sands may scorch the skin,

Yet I would brave a thousand storms of fire and dust

Just to reach you.

The oceans, with their secret depths and mythic creatures,

Churn and swell—

Still, I would swim every fathom of their turquoise sorrow,

And weather every storm that crashes down.

If I could end your suffering, inch by inch,

If I could restore every part of you that we’ve destroyed—

The trees, the air, the water, the soil,

The birds silenced, the beasts vanished—

I would do it a million times over.

For our greed knows no end.

Man’s hunger is a bottomless pit.

You bear the pain as long as you can—

Until tsunamis rage, floods swallow cities,

Earthquakes rip the crust,

And sickness sweeps across our kind.

Pandemics have come, and gone—

But have we changed?

Have we heard your warning cries?

Or seen these wounds for what they are:

Your way of fighting back?

Still, even as you suffer,

You are the most beautiful thing I know.

You astonish me endlessly.

When I look through my window

At the trees whispering secrets in the wind,

At the sky stretching vast and infinite,

I feel grateful to exist beneath you.

Without you, these cities are tombs of glass and steel.

Without you, there is no peace,

Only noise.

My love for you will never die.

And when I no longer walk upon your skin,

I will be home—

With you.