20150830 (population growth)

Beware of world population clocks

Like the national debt ticker it won’t

Stop you’ll get very dizzy

You don’t know who dies on the second line

Nor any idea who the new babies are

I knew of Oliver Sacks who died 

Yesterday which one of the blips he was

No one knows in that torrent of finalities

I know one added baby showed up

A month and a half ago his parents 

Were likely too busy to note

When his number flipped over

Mind boggling when you consider

Molecules there are so many more 

They spread so fast I was taught 

In high school chemistry we have probably

Breathed in some of the same oxygen

That once sustained Christ Homer

Shakespeare Avogadro likewise

Torquemada Genghis Kahn Hitler 

The Borgias interesting that we all

Have that in common but it doesn’t

Leave a bad or good taste in my

Mouth not knowing was somewhat

Comforting I thought not like

Sharing the same air on a six-hour 

Flight to Seattle with two hundred plus

Coughers on board that’s when I’d like

The windows to open a crack

Like the side vents cars used to have

Every additional baby is putting more 

Breathers on the planet and the deaths

Are not keeping up additional faces

Mean there’ll be that much more 

Competition for what’s left especially 

Since all the new folks will want to live 

Grander than us prodigals soiling

Everything we touch refusing to make do

You’re wearing last year’s clothes

Get a new car get the latest have it all

Remember Jesus said the poor you

Will always have with you they’ll make it

They’re resourceful you can always give 

Old clothes away how do you think

Zimbabweans come by Heights soccer

Shirts in the middle of Africa they’re

Recycled that’s what you want

Plus we’re making jobs for those poor 

In Bangladesh who produce our new

Clothes growth you gotta have it 

Or it all falls apart go forth and multiply

What you’re talking isn’t sustainable

Who’s going to refuse to have kids 

Talk about selfish ain’t that the problem 

Keeping money all to yourself 

Helping nobody it’ll be a long time

Until we run out I won’t live to see it

There’ll be some kind of war or disease

To knock the numbers down before

Anything serious happens

c. J.S.Manista, 2015