“ Earthly Space ”
– in a deadly race –
Pending we find
Be fated space,
Afore we in time
Do evaporate,
Past our assign
At carnage rate,
Thus so spent
Oblivious of state,
In a desolate bent
Of what we’ve left,
In a deadly race,
Too soon reduced
To depleted place,
Of carved out caves
We’ll surely face,
In dire need to stave
Forces waiting hungrily,
Held lowly knaves,
Who’d greedily engage,
Imperiling earthly space,
Albeit by then our grave!
written in Grasse, Fr.
© Jean-Jacques Fournier
Poetry on a Canapé 
A profound look into a future that is unfolding. “Afore we in time Do evaporate” is a strident call to action. If we do not respond, we are “Imperiling earthly space, Albeit by then our grave.” What I find most interesting, Jean-Jacques, is that you had the foresight to pen this poem in Grasse, France, several years ago. Your words: evaporate, carnage, Oblivious, deadly, depleted are well place, reminding me of a clock soon to reach midnight. We are in a race. May we run it with renewed hope that we can change the narrative.
Yes it is a while ago 2004, 16 years to be exact. Even then it was not a new concern, as remembering when driving by a lake or a brook on a thirsty summer day, just stopping by and drinking straight from it not even knowing of the word pollution connected to our waterways. Unless you lived in London, England of like places, all you could smell in the air then was the scent of flowers or pine trees. If man had started killing the planet, he hadn’t gotten that far yet. But by now he sure has made up for it, judging the carnage he continues to bestow on us his fellowman and this planet.
Alas so much to do with the limits imposed by they who have the power and means to effect the changes for humanity to survive.
Thank you, Rebecca, and hopeful I am that we the people of this our world will wake up in time as to accelerate at full measure the survival changes required !
I was surprised to learn that this poem wasn’t written recently. At the same time, however, I remember very clearly the same clarion call when I was in junior high and high school fifty years ago. Time’s running out, people.
Thanks Liz. I think under the circumstances I’ll take your surprise as a kind of compliment, in as much as having written it in 2004, it seems to still have an element of surprise. After all it is 16 years, though it and so many other cries haven’t had much influence on stirring up a sufficient sense of responsibility with the powers that be… like our elected representatives and the money and power gentlemen, so to speak… But then again do we really expect that this would do much with any of them, save if they feel personally at immediate risk.
As you say time is running out. So will the world’s children, let alone grandchildren get to live like human beings, as in a full so-called normal life, before time does run out? Bearing in mind Corvid-19, I thought bringing out Earthly Space once again, might be timely…
Jean-Jacques
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A beautiful poem, my dear Jean-Jacques and timely too.
I find it harder as time slips by, to keep pushing at the seemingly indifference of man, as to our survival or lack thereof. That possibly said present young adults and the immediate generation in the offing will not find a livable world, at least not to its full extent, as in permanent masks or worst like full-body coverage like space travellers on our own planet, living in saturated pollution beyond salvageable levels.
Not a pretty picture, but I beg our fearless leaders to show me unequivocally, that we are not now well anchored on that very road! Thank you, Marina…
Jean-Jacques
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Thank you, Marina…
Jean-Jacques
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