Planetball!

Planetball!
(04/22/2004)


Earth Day, Earth Day!
Earth, it's your birthday!
Four billion years old...
You're four billion years old today!
What's that?!? When?
Okay... I'll start again.

Earth Day, Earth Day!
Earth, it's your birthday!
6,000 years old...
You're six thousand years old today!

Huh?!?
I give up...
There's debate on your age.
Between the labcoats and pews,
there's a 3,999,994,000-year discrepancy
somewhere lost on the page.

Do fossils exist for the scientists
or did God place them there just to give us a scare?
How, on you, Earth, can both views exist?
And why, dear God, why, would You have us care?!?

"Balance," I reckon, would be your response.
You'd say,
"Science, irrelevant to the believer
who argues that Faith is the only healer,
is gold to the soul who requires evidence,
for he trusts nothing beyond his fifth sense."

Meanwhile, Earth, you spin on your axis
and we, at your surface, are moving the fastest.
Especially those who are at the equator --
for them, your centripetal forces are greater!

You bathe us with rain, clean the beaches with Tide,
and excite us by way of tornados and mudslides.
With each rotation, you move every nation,
in which time you meet almost 12.4 billion feet,
yet you still give us sunshine, the seasons, and wheat.

What gift could I give you that you don't already own?
Mount Everest? The Amazon? Flowers you've grown?
No. I'd bring ideas -- concepts, no mass...
games we could play as we sit on your grass.

Counting stars in the sky, watching pinecones drift by,
we could play in your honor. This game we could try:
I propose to you, Earth, an intellectual sport
in which the ball also serves as the playing court.

Psst! That's you!!! By this, I mean you!!!
And the point of the game would be passing O2.
The score would be kept as a Total Life Count,
where a cell is the unit of smallest amount.

From blood cells of zebras to tiny amoebas,
ocean floor to atmosphere, plankton to snow geese,
we'd count every cell. We'd count them all,
in this, the game of planetball!

This "TLC" score would give us your pulse --
more living than dying, the favored result.
What's that? What?!? You're right! I forgot.
You have no mind. You have no thought.

I'd forgotten that you, Earth, can't possibly care.
It's us who give meaning to water and air.
I can't speak for insects -- they've different perspective,
but we live on you with our dreams and objectives.

We sometimes forget and take granite for granted.
This is our Earth... This is really our planet!
It's us who lose when we waste and abuse.
We are our own victims. We have no excuse.

Happy birthday, Earth! You're a gift to us all.
I'll remember you today -- today and each and every day --
I'm playing planetball!