Poetry: The Story of The Human Race

The Story of The Human Race

by Erin Yoo

​

I see the world 
Flashing before my very eyes,
Standing here
On the cusp 
Of human recklessness 

​

I see not 
The coruscating glimmer 
Of populous cities
Nor the stolid moon
With her serene countenance 
Gazing steadily at me
And of her close confidantes,
The twinkling stars
Delighting in their own joviality

​

Nay, 
In the brief hiatus
In which this coterie
Of human society
Has reigned on Earth
The world as we knew it 
Is no more

​

And we are yet to discover
The temperament 
Of this ominous new stranger,
That has usurped 
The throne of Mother Earth
As creator of life
Our long-abandoned acquaintance
Receding into 
The shadows of bygone days

​

I am at the pinnacle of the gaffe 
Of generations
With foreboding I peer down from this peak
And see how far we plummet
The depth of our folly
The panorama presented to me
A vista of the formidable road ahead
A polyptych 
Of which I will now describe to you

I hear
The jarring screams
Of viridescent verdure
Rapidly reduced
To charred remnants
Ghosts of what they once were

​

I see the vagabond fauna
Valiantly battling with Death, 
With numbers rapidly dwindling
All the same

​

And those of our own syndicate,
Displaced and world-weary,
The human race
A mere atrophy
Of what it used to be

​

Those blithe days a mere memory,
Rueful of what could have been,
And remorseful at what things had come to

​

Dejected,
That after all those remonstrances
That Mother Earth had hollered at us
We had chosen to bide our time
To turn a deaf ear

​

I glimpse
The cyan caresses 
Of this foreboding stranger
Lapping at the verdant hills
Reaching out towards her cerulean acquaintance,
The lulling cadence duplicitous 
In its superficial reassurance,
Perniciously seeking to expand
Its hegemony 

​

I hear
The ululating cries
Of the ivory ursine
Roaming the snowy tundra
At familial bonds 
Broken 
Broods 
Torn apart
As their once-stolid ally, 
Has been faltering
Under the fervent glare
Of the aggrieved sun
Vexed 
At the exorbitant interlopers
Called greenhouse gases
Who throng the atmosphere 
Which the sun and moon take residence
Carbon dioxide 
Being among the most notorious 

​

I smell
The effluvium 
Of decaying carcasses
Their sepulchers 
The expanse of the sea
Its pellucid veneer
Now murky and cloudy
With the detritus of its denizens
The ocean now the landfill 
Of the negligent humans 

​

We are confronted
With two roads
Diverging 
Ahead of us
Our decision 
Irrevocable
The imminent future
Inevitable

​

One road
Leads to our passive acquiesce 
And be swallowed up by Death 
For eternity 

​

The other,
Leads to our triumph,
Welcoming back Mother Earth
With open arms
Living jaunty lives once more
But only if we chose
For it to be so

​

I chronicle this story to the you, 
The story of the human race, 
For you are the seed of possibility
Sowed and dormant

​

And it's up to you
To prove
That miracles can truly come true
That humans are capable
Of rectifying their errs
Shedding their insouciance,
Vigilantly heed Mother Earth,
And set the world right again
If only you chose to do so

​

About the author

Editor in Chief & Founder

Erin's work has been recognized by several prestigious awards, including the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards, the National High School Poetry Contest Topical Winner, the Young Georgia Authors Writing Competition, the Illustrated Poem Contest in the Southwest Georgia Section of the American Chemistry Society (ACS), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Essay & Poetry Program, and the Essays on Technology Event organized by the Technology Student Association (TSA) State Conference. Her recent poems have been published in Teen Ink Magazine. I serve as a Junior Board Member and Senior Editor at the Polyphony Lit Magazine, as Chief Print Edition Officer, and on the Writing/Editing Team in The Scientific Teen Magazine.