Change of Climate

You praise the glories of those green hills,
Oaks and daisies swaying in the breezes;
Farmhouses and homesteads and stone mills,
Rivers and lakes and ponds with fish leaping.

You are entitled to your feelings, even if they are wrong,
For I choose to enjoy more wide-open pristine vistas;
Asteroids and new worlds, entire star systems strewn
Resources vast and limitless, waiting for the restless...

You can take your shrunken terrarium called Earth,
Now so spoiled, barely any clean streams escaped;
I will be out there harvesting riches, increasing net worth,
Choosing which ten-mile asteroid to make my new estate.

Hope you enjoy breathing what will pass for oxygen,
As you fight off hordes of diseases and afflictions;
My companions and I will be making our phlogiston,
Utilizing on-site mineral reprocessing production.

Time's passage will chose which one of us was correct,
Meanwhile I have a planet to terraform and so must leave;
Take care you don't submerge in sludge pools collected,
Or breathe any poison gasses, nor any lost future grieve.

Mike Wilson has been publishing poetry and short stories for over three years now. His work can be seen in Aphelion and other quality publishing periodicals. He lives and writes in Des Moines, Iowa, USA.

Find more by Mike Wilson in the Author Index.

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