To Mother's Children*

We are the children of a most loving Mother,
but pain, neglect and anguish she suffers,
crumbling beneath Father's emotionless face and
withering, by a wave of his merciless hands,
from a fatal plague that has no cure,
a plague, known as age, all must endure.

But we, her ungrateful children, provide her no solace,
we give no comfort when Mother's tears fall as
she violently sighs and grumbles in woe
then quakes and trembles in one final throe,
even her frustration, a flaring eruption,
is quickly cooled in a cold, clouded ocean.

For we, Mother's children, bleed her generous heart,
we ravage her beauty and we tear her apart,
but Mother loves us, her children, and gives
all she has so her ungrateful children may live.
Without her, we cannot last; however,
our sweet Mother cannot last forever.

*Inspired by Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal and Paris Spleen