Book of Lamentations

Draft First Stab in progress...

Lamentations

Hubris

Call me Icarus

Last child in a line of genius
Clever beyond all reckoning
What lay beyond our grasp?

With our toys and our baubles
With our comforts and pastimes
With our palaces and plazas

In our thousand thousand thousands

We heeded not wisdom nor the wise

We elevated the unwise to power

We followed them unwisely

We took without consent

We killed the inconvenient

We killed those with whom we disagreed

We trampled our world under
Spread our careless poisons

On the winds
On the waters
On the lands

We cut the forests
We paved the fields
We soured the oceans
We torched the sky

Ravenous

Gluttonous
We ate the world

In bites scarce tasted

Insatiable

And fouled our nest with shit

What profit that we gained the world?

What profit that we lost our way?

What profit that we lost our world?

In trade for a handful of shine

In trade for unearned ease

In trade for our world brought low

Our reach too long

Our vision too short

Mastery

We created wonders

We walked among them

We flew the sky and walked the moon

We saw with our own eyes the deeps of the sea

Our voices carried around the world

Our fields fed multitudes

We created minds in our own image

We lit starfire on earth

Our fingers shaped the very script of life

Our eyes saw to the dawn of time

We lit the night till stars were dim

We built high and wide and long

Our music was sublime and our art

Our beauties shimmered

We thought deeply

We understood much

Loud proclaimed we

LOOK UPON OUR WORKS

Are we not the pinnacle?

The fruition of all time?

Growth

Ancients before us warned of growth

Who themselves had risen and fell

That which grows doubles

Then doubles again

And again

Slow at first

Then runs away

Growth seduces
Slow at first
Loves promise and first kiss
Easing higher
Soon doubling in ardor
Loves passion pulsing in embrace
But doubling again
Become ravenous
Love turned jealous
Possessive
We are murdered
By a passion not love

The human world is bounded

And growth unchecked is fatal

The lure of knowledge 

The lure of ease

The lure of wealth

The lure of power

Gratified

Growth unchecked seduces

Slow at first like loves promise

Quickening like loves passion
Ravenous like loves jealous rage

But neither love nor love gone bad

We lie murdered in our sleep

You who come after

You who come after

We bid you find a wiser way

Than the death we followed

Beware our gifts

Use them sparingly

Your eyes lifted to the long horizon

Bargains with gain are bad bargains

With short term gain

But long term ruin

No entity thrives

That trades gain for loss

Yet gain is subtle

Yours is bound with that of others

Friends and family

And strangers alike

Take what you need and no more

Lift others up

Teach them wisdom

Teach them knowledge

Teach them to value wisdom

Above knowledge

Above gain

Lest you follow us in pride

Lest you follow us in unchecked growth

Lest you follow us in ruin

We were warned

Will you be warned?

Will you be wise where we were not?