This poem, published in 2008, is evidence that the chaos and cruelty abundant today has been with us all along. Mary Oliver, more well-known for her awe-filled devotion to noticing the natural world, was clearly not unaware of the perils of our consumerist, dominating culture. Which is also part of our world. The part that is imperiling all of us. This current war, far away as it may seem to some, will not spare any of us, eventually. Those who think this can be “won” are fear-driven fools.

According to LiveScience.com. “Between Feb. 28 and March 14, 2026, the warring parties released almost 5.6 million tons (5.1 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide (CO₂) …For comparison, if these emissions continued at the same rate for one year, they would be roughly equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of the 84 lowest emitting countries in the world combined. And the emissions from the first two weeks of the conflict are higher than Iceland’s annual carbon emissions, which in 2024 totaled 4.7 million tons (4.3 million metric tons) of CO₂ via all sources, the team said.”

It’s past time to declare that the Emperor has no clothes.
May we all work for a better future, even —especially—when it feels futile.

–––

Of The Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurit
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

© 2008 by Mary Oliver
From her 2008 collection, Red Bird
Published by Beacon Press 2008