Noah’s Ark

After humans gouge out the eyes
of the last shiny stone,
after the mineral guts
are drilled and dragged from middle earth,
After the drills of technology suck out
the last oily slop, and when

every speck of gold is clutched
and hoarded, after selling off
the last ounce of a necklace
known to silver, then

then after humans slice down
the understory stand and rip
down the gossamer riggings 
of the web holding up nature's
complexity, then, then after

suffocating earth with another
million kilometers of paved highways
and parking lots, sniffing out the last breath
of grass and leaf, after

pumping another ton of poison into 
the earth with insecticides and
herbicides, and suicides, adding
garbage to the oceans so large,
a new continent born. Then,

like a wild animal cornered,
nature will turn its teeth back
with growl and claw, cracking
roads and snapping rails,
knocking sky-scrapers into rubble

and flooding the Nile, soaking pyramids,
drowning Florida's tallest condo at Miami Beach,
and oceans rise so high, even the Grand
Canyon will be lost to an inland sea,

then, then watch our scholars
flushed with panic, rush through
the library doors to research the
moldy part about the mythical days
of Noah and the building of an arc.

Reed Venrick has been lucky to live in 5 countries and has often combined two key interests–language and travel, He currently lives in Medellin, Colombia, where he’s learning to speak like a “Paisa” and live on “arepas,” and tropical fruits!