The Anger Poem by Jan Sand

What will be the dreams
Of our children's children's children?
They will be told
How we took the green Earth
And squeezed it in our fists
Until the blood
Streamed between our fingers
And then inspected our palms
For the dead gold we so love.
'Where, ' they will ask, 'are the elephants? '
'Where are the tigers and the whales? '
'Why kill the peaceful pandas,
The fierce Tyrannosaurus Rex, the dodo,
The passenger pigeon, the shark
And the gryphon. Where are the dragons
That patrolled the clouds?
Did you have to kill the unicorn and butcher Jesus Christ? '
For this guilt will stain like an engine
Pumping blood out of both the real
And the fantastic to engulf and besmirch
All innocence.

These sons of our sons of our sons,
Daughters of our daughters of our daughters,
Will know an angry sky with a relentless sun
That spits blindness and cancer
In cosmic hate.
They will flee from roiling atmospheres
Speared with thunderbolts,
Whirling winds that spin flying corpses
In grotesque glee.
The seas will rise to entomb in green silence
Coastal cities, tropic islands.
And these sons and daughters
Will wonder why
We made the Earth so angry.