Before the angels wept
Before the rivers salted
Before the aquifers dried
Before the cities on the Atlantic flooded
Before the islands vanished
Before the glaciers melted
Before the last queen bee died
Before the turtles stopped laying eggs
Before the frogs quit croaking
Before the dust storms blew east
Before the water wars between Israel and Jordan
Before the water wars between the US and Mexico
Before the water wars between Switzerland and the rest of Europe
Before the water wars between India and Pakistan
Before Bangladesh returned to the sea
Before the forests turned to sahel
Before the sahel turned to desert
Before all the fish became toxic
Before the last coral bleached
Before the Big One sent half of California into the Pacific
Before the Mississippi swallowed New Orleans
Before the last of the apples grew
Before the wheat crop failed
Before the Exclusion Zone expanded to Moscow
Before Charles III fled to what was left of New Zealand
Before the Pope retreated to Capri after one final blessing
Before ebola consumed most of Africa
Before the ladybugs all died off
Before the Chinese required sterilization
Before the last of the Amazon burned for farms
Before the Nile ran dry
Before the oil wells gasped their last black liquid
Before the forests refused to grow
Before the yearly Cat 4’s and 5’s hammered our coasts to nothing
Before the last untamed space became tame
Before melanoma was as common as a cold
Before the migrations changed the politics
Before the EPA disbanded
Before the palm oil plantations burned
Before the final gigatons of fossil fuels were released
Before the methane of the ruminants required gas masks
Before the Great Extinction in ’46
Before each month brought new record highs
Before the last school child futilely planted that last tree
Before Malthus giggled in his grave
We had quite the run
