Poetry is not my thing, because most of the time, I don’t get it. But I just had to share one that was recently posted on a list called Behind Our Eyes. Here’s what I wrote to the author.

This was one of the most thoughtful and relevant poems I have read in a long time. It’s sad to think of the inconsiderate and waistful ways we have used up God’s creation without thought of preserving its beauty and life.

My apologies to Leonard for removing the blank lines, but I needed to try to make it fit in a smaller space. My apology to you the reader for making it 2 pages, but I hope you read all the way to the end, because I think that’s the best part. What do you think?

Legacy, by Leonard Tuchyner

I am a space time wanderer,

looking for a place to dwell —

a land of prairie grasses —

verdant, shadowed woodlands —

rushing, tumbling crystal streams

flowing to ponds and lakes,

abounding with fish and fowl,

living oceans vast as skies,

that twinkle with firmament

in dark of sacred nights,

and rains to wash all anew.

“Go, my son,” my father said.

“Travel where my time is done,

and take this land in times to come.

The future belongs to you alone.”

In gratitude and expectation,

I mounted my waiting flying steed,

who carried me through passing years,

swiftly on his timeless wings;

so quickly I could not perceive

the landscapes changing under me.

When the sweeping Sun and stars

cease their pinwheel streaking swirl,

I look down upon a wasted world,

where forests once stood, a burned-out grit

festooned with stunted plants and bugs —

prairies silent of beating hooves —

deserts sweltering in heat of night —

wormed-out mountains of barren rock —

streams and lakes, long now, oily dead —

oceans reek with the smell of death,

in embrace of a torrid wind.

I scream out to the sickened land,

“What, in God’s name, has happened to you?”

And Earth answers in gasping breath,

“Your father took faster than I could give.”

Mary Hiland

Mary.hiland@wowway.com

www.seeingitmyway.com

Author of “The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living A Daughter’s Memoir”

Available at Amazon.com