For the Rain, It Raineth Every Day

An essayist delighted in a committee
Vote by geologists against Anthropocene.

Oh, thought a reader, here comes a blow to hubris,
To the human sense humans have all the power,

But no, the essayist liked the committee vote
Since the essayist felt the term Anthropocene

Implied it was a change the whole species had wrought
When, in the essayist’s view, it was a subset

Of bad actors who had generated this mess.
The reader was disappointed. We’re back to that.

Identify the them that did this and break them—
Shame them, strip power from them, disassemble them

And the systems they rode in on, and then their reign
Will be done and the rain fall right as rain again.

Of course, the essayist was sophisticated
But still wrote to the tune of There they are, get them.

And there’s the old problem—the idea that the worst
Things are done by the worst sorts of humans meaning

To do their worst using the worst sorts of systems.
If only the rest of us could isolate them

Or punish them sufficiently, eliminate
Them and their systems, things might get better again.

It’s not the species. It’s just those ones. Not all us.
But what if they’re not the worst? What if they’re like us?

It’s not necessarily hopeless. Conditions
Vary, inevitably. Instead of hunting

The worst and tackling them, sift through the conditions
In which less of the worse seems to be happening

And work to expand the scope of those conditions.
Yes, this is optimistic, the reader trying

To carve out a little room for optimism.
Otherwise, if the plan’s still to identify

The culprits, identifiers identify
Each other, or become what they identified,

Or catch only weaker sinners, given the strong
Can elude them. And yes, this is a species thing.