Behind the bookcase I moved this morning
To prepare for the plasterer, I found the book
You lent me four years ago, two years
Before your heirs sold off your library.
Did you ever wonder what had become of it,
You who lent books to so many friends
That you couldn’t remember where each one went?
A book on what has to be done at once
To save the biosphere from calamity,
How best to persuade our species it’s time
To think about those whose time is coming.
Four years on the floor behind the bookcase
With a congregation of dust balls and dust mites,
And with every year it’s become more true.
For your sake, if not the planet’s,
I ought to do more than vow
To put my copy back into circulation.
I ought at least to resist in myself
The argument spelled out in the paper today
About the need of our species to adjust
To its new environment, as the fittest
And shrewdest have always done.
For you I should join this very evening
Those who are shrewd and fit enough
Not to regard your cause as hopeless,
Not to succumb to the voice of moderation,
The fatal charm of compromise.