Time,

something that everyone seems short of.

I need more time

to finish the project,

I need some time to prepare.

Yet one phrase left unheard:

Do we have enough time?

Do we have enough time to save our homes?

Not the fake plastic covered homes,

not the polluted wasteland,

not the plastic islands at sea,

but OUR home,

the home where green grows,

the home where lives have been changed,

the natural, musky, wood-scented, outdoors

home.

Our home is at risk,

in danger, it's the prey

stuck between climate-change claws.

Our summers become more and

more scorching,

skin cancer everywhere you look.

The oceans' waters are about to boil.

Winters are no longer,

the ice is thinning,

instead of skating

you might as well swim.

Museums will not have dinosaurs

nor mummies, but stuffed

corpses of birds

we once thought were plentiful

Withered branches

of green, a precious artifact,

a reminder of what we have caused.

Will we rob the future generations of the callings of the tui,

of the skytower totara trees

and break the children's hearts before

they even have hearts?

Steal their sense of nature?

Will we thieve them of their plants, trees and streams?

Climate change?

No, it's just hot today.

Air pollution?

No, it's just a tad foggy.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

all of the horses and all of the men

just watched as Humpty cried.

Now replace

good ol’ Humpty Dumpty

with ‘Mother Nature’ –

Little Miss Muffet

sat on a plastic tuffet

eating her high-in-sugar whey

along came a tidal wave of climate change

and washed Miss Muffet away.

This can't be the end

I won't allow it –

we can

bring out weapons of blue and green.

We can restore Mary's lambs and Humpty's smog free air.

We can fight for a place where we don’t choke on smoke.

We can fight for our waters, too murky to see the bottom

We can fight for a cause begging to be cared for.

But why listen to me?

Why listen to somebody

who is still in primary school?

So listen

to the scientists

Listen to the experts

Listen and hear the cries for intervention

Listen to the young

Listen to the elders

Listen to the wailing cries of the trees in the wind

Listen to the swan song of our home

Listen until the final note of this journey is played

Listen until the hum of the wind has died

Listen before our home is lost

Listen.

Just take a moment and listen.