Absences

Do the trees miss the axe

Or the prey the hunter?

Does the wind miss the reek of smoke, opaque and fetid

Or water the relentless drip, drip of poison?

Does the earth miss the unending rhythm of a zillion wheels 

Or the clouds the constant flight of steel birds, that blasphemy of avian life?

Does the ocean miss the cut and the din of ships, or

The noxious waste they leave in their wake?

Does the sun miss the gaudy spectacle we enact day after day,

Under the misnomer of life?

Does the moon miss our unhinged displays, our senseless pursuit of this or that idée fixe?

Do the stars miss our meager lights

That cannot reach the next street, let alone the next galaxy?

We think the world of ourselves

In a world that thinks nothing of us.