Homeward Boundless

Promise me this, that you will not forget
Anything this earth has taught you
From the microbe to where you are standing now.
You will need it, and it just might need you
To recognize how much you need it.

It will be the earth that will remind you
What a plant is as you stare at the red rock,
Its dust shielded from your face
By your technological carapace.
It will remind you to stop staring,
It will remind you to start caring

Before the shield is removed,
You cannot breathe despite the calculactions,
All the calculations you made,
Because we started with our rapaciousness
Rather than with love, because we forgot
That a planet is a planet is a planet,
Like the one we left tired and shot,
Like that one whose name we barely recall.