Poem: "Changing Nature"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came from the February 7, 2012 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by a prompt from whuffle.  It was sponsored by Shirley Barrette.  I like to think of humanity as the part of Gaia that can plan consciously.

Changing Nature

It is human nature
to desire to change things,
as it is nature for the world itself
to change.

To see the rabbit kit dragged in by the cat
is to consider what will happen
if we intervene or do not intervene.

We may think in terms of one rabbit or one cat,
one personal choice, and yet
this is but one iteration
within a larger pattern.

We learn to reach out or to withhold
based on what we observe in our choices --
what lives, what dies,
what feeds or goes hungry,
what struggles or flourishes
in our presence or our absence.

The shape of our passage through the world
is written out in the species
that remain wild or become domesticated,
survive or go extinct.

We transform the landscape
and the ecosystem --
and subtly, unknowingly --
even ourselves.

It is the nature of all that is
to change into what will be.

It is the destiny of humans,
beyond blind nature,
to change knowingly.