Changing Just In Time

CHANGING JUST IN TIME

The land is not mine,
Yet it is extracted from,
Ploughed up,
To satisfy the human condition,
For we are conditioned to consume,
More than what we have.

I see the long bitumen roads,
The small towns catering for miners,
For many are seeking a higher wage,
In conditions that are dirty and harsh,
I recall the mining accidents,
Kept out of the media,
To go down a coal mine,
Is to work in the dark,
But I wonder if we will see the light,
In time.

In Chile the 33 coalminers were national heroes,
As they stayed underground for 17 days,
Yet no-one spoke of safety,
No-one spoke of the others who had died,
For it is dangerous work underground,
For any underground movement,
Is an early burial.

We all are living off coal,
I see myself as in demand,
So I cannot sit in judgement,
Yet I must change,
For the world is in crisis,
If I do not decide where I sit,
then sitting on the fence,
allows a worse case scenario,
for I must take responsibility,
it is the canary in the coalmine,
this is the warning that the climate has changed,
and what we take for granted,
is limited in time and space,
for this is a race against time,
and it is time to wake up,
to reality.

We must learn the ways of nature,
We must learn how to co-exist,
the Boab tree stores water not coal,
the trees are sequestering carbon,
naturally,
to release it is not to free it,
it is to tip the balance,
for the system self regulates,
without instruction,
For we are stewards not foreman,
And jobs are not everything,
Yet somehow we must learn to survive with less,
Yet enjoy more leisure time,
Surely we can rearrange the deck chairs,
Reshuffle the pack,
To find the Joker allows us to choose anything,
To start again,
For it is a new game which is coming,
As the climate is the wild card,
That does not negotiate wage contracts,
Or provide employment in the mines,
These are the times truly changing,
For when we are true to nature,
We will change,
Just-in-time.