Today’s napowrimo.net prompt is to write (ugh!) an Earth Day poem. I am not a huge fan of Earth Day. I see it the way George Carlin did, as expressed in his ‘The Planet is Fine’ routine from Jammin’ in New York: a lot of it is pure self-interest. We care more about our immediate environment than we do about our planet ‘in the abstract.’ So, I did not bother with addressing any environmental themes in my poem. I went with a more universal theme—one that seems especially appropriate, seeing as how Prince just died…

The earth welcomes us all

The earth welcomes us all
all in good time—

often when we least expect

Many of us assume we’ll ascend
to the heavens above (or Heaven above)

but it’s ashes to ashes, dust to dust
for the lot of us

The earth does not discriminate
on the basis of love or hate

or whether you rush to get there
or decide to wait

or popularity or riches
or who you count as friends

The earth welcomes us all
in the end

(22 April 2016)