Poem - Evil likes company

Self-explanatory

 

By Stanley Collymore

 

I do love to be at the seaside, taking in and massively

enjoying the vagaries of the sea or the open ocean,

dependent in which part of the world I happen

to be in. But characteristically, and without

exception, I do passionately detest the

unwarranted intrusion of others who calculatingly

couldn’t care less about the invasion of privacy

that they selfishly and arrogantly cause to

people like me. And who by their loud

and persistent noise, either through

mindless chatter on their mobile

phones, or else in completely

inconsequential diatribes

with each other which

they and only they can decipher, intensify

this tangibly devastating incursion of

theirs by wilfully despoiling often

pristine and attractive locations

they come across with their

filthy clutter of carelessly

abandoned and horribly

unprepossessing litter.

 

Which, self-evidently, to them doesn’t matter a jot whether

it’s recyclable or not, nor, come to that, the catastrophic

harm that will needlessly be occasioned by them to

various and highly vulnerable marine creatures

who for millennium after millennium have constantly,

and prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens, not only

in concert with Nature inhabited as well as

productively utilized the land surfaces

and atmospheric regions of Planet

Earth itself but correspondingly

too its seas and vast oceans.

 

So please, urgently stop for once and seriously consider

what it is that you’re senselessly doing to vulnerably

exposed communities or perceptive individuals

like me, but equally so and specifically as

well myriads of marine creatures that,

in normal circumstances, happily

inhabit the earth’s oceans, land-based waterways

and seas; and which in millennia terms have

a much more conclusive right to be here

on this earth than either you or me.

Since their ongoing presence

amongst us, respectively,

immensely predates our own comparatively

recent appearance on earth historically.

And they have existed this long in

their particular environments

because they’ve skilfully

learnt to sensibly and

rather realistically

adjust to them.

 

And have never endeavoured to radically

change or even mindlessly destroy

existing ones, as is so visibly

routine with ostensibly

know-all Homo

sapiens.

 

© Stanley V. Collymore

29 September 2019.

 

 

Author’s Comments:

I’ve never thought at any past stage in my life, nor will I ever be persuaded to think so far less actually believe that as human beings we are essentially and, furthermore, inescapably who we are and must therefore forever remain that way. A direct consequence, as it were, of the strict preordination of our personal and seemingly irreversible circumstances explicitly determined by our own respective birth.

 

Categorically, it’s a notion I don’t buy; nor will I ever be tempted to do so. However, you’re perfectly at liberty to do so in respect of yourself if you choose to do so.

 

None the less, what I confidently know and earnestly believe is that we’re all of us supposedly human beings personally endowed with the capability, either for better or worse, to essentially and even fundamentally change who and what we are. And in doing so must also realistically equip ourselves with both the requisite common sense as well as the necessary courage to boldly take and fully accept total responsibility not only for our individual but also our collective actions.

 

Not only in relation to how such activities affect us personally or each other in the communities that we either live in or are individually familiar with but also the wider world generally, both in terms of the various life forms �" animals as well as plants �" plus inorganic structures like evolved landscapes and other formations, and most particularly so the live inhabitants of our waterways, seas and oceans. And significantly in such calculations doing so not exclusively, or even simply, from the narrow perspective born of the arrogant and narcissistic demands of us Homo sapiens.

 

Which seriously prompts this plausible question. Would any other earthly species reasonably relish trading places with us human beings?