2020 A Year to Forget

Nancy Mercado

Earth put a roaring halt 
to our empty rabid existence 
ceasing marathon plastic productions 
disintegrating worldwide stock markets 
shuttering ubiquitous greed
 
Earth put a roaring halt 
to our multimillion-dollar-games 
sunk crude oil markets to asunder 
stopped our titillating trophy hunts 
our eating bloody meat in hoards 
our cruel trampling of the land 
put an end to our soiling of the skies 
our tarnishing the homes where water-beasts are born 

In one thunderous clap the Planet hurled 
an instant standstill to our haywire 
to our decapitation of mountain tops 
our butchering of tree-communities 
to our murdering sprees of elephant 
and whale, tiger infants 
and elders, mothers and girls
 
Throughout passing days of sirens 
our existence is halted 
a new plague set into motion 
our mass die-off 
launched. 

Copyright © 2024 by Nancy Mercado. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 23, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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about this poem

“I’ve always contemplated the human condition. Why it is that our species can be so ruinous to other life forms, to each other, and to the only home we have—Earth. I wonder why many of us are so enthralled with fame, power, and money, and not with the many wonders of our beautiful planet or the universe. I often become angry at our destructive nature, and so I document it in my work. Twenty-twenty was a perfect year to do just that.”
—Nancy Mercado

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Thanks to Victor Hernández Cruz, author of Beneath the Spanish (Coffee House Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Hernández Cruz’s curatorial approach and find out more about our Guest Editors for the year.

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