Literature: Wherein Lies Progress

Swimming in a glowing haze of leaden fog
Breathes raging—lungs crushed with smog
Legs rushing me inside to an iron shell
Man-made shelter in this man-made hell

Outside lies a silhouette of a dying tree,
Skyline smokestacks dance lazily free,
Murky trails rooted in economic demands
To cherish ravages of a thousand lands
A thousand heavens blotted, stained
Such is price of “progress” attained

The vacant ether draws ever nearer
Shall we ever arise from our stupor?
The void through which our planet runs—
A change must brush through every nation
For progress stems not from devastation