Poem A Day Challenge – Day 5

November 5, 2014 by aintnoninny 3 Comments

Keep This Earth Clean


To drive or not to drive, that is the question.

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

the hundred-degree heat in a cooled auto

or to take public transportation and,

in so doing, save energy. To drive

no more; and walk the street to say we end

the gas wars, and the thousand years of drilling

the Earth has endured: ‘tis a consummation

devoutly to be wished. To drive the street;

to ride, perchance to fly– ay, there’s the rub:

for in the streets of death what dreams may come,

when we have shuffled off engines of oil

must give us pause – there’s the respect

that makes calamity of a life so driven.

(A shameless riff on Hamlet’s soliloquy)