Jenny McBride – Carol
She was telling me about
A glimpse of Kilimanjaro
She caught on the educational t.v. channel,
Glimpse of Kilimanjaro melting
In the heat of tragedy
But the show was really about
The marvelous and varied plant life
On the slopes
And the researcher with a mobility disability
Struggling with canes up the mountain
Who had to finally give up and say
He could go no further
And the audience felt the blow.
And I thought of us
Kilimanjaro melting in our
Sell-the-Earth tragedy,
Thought how we’re all like that researcher
In our fight to save the planet
The plants and animals going extinct
Like deafening drops in the bucket,
All the activists working without pay, without sleep,
And finally having to say,
We can go no further.
Maybe we’ll discover then
That there are ranks supporting us from behind.
We’ll have to discover something
Because we can’t admit we’re beaten
So long as we’ve got all of life on our side.
Jenny McBride
May-June 2006 Earth First!