Dear Mother Earth,

    Your ability to continue life
Has been taken for granted.
About your protection many have ranted.

    For all that you have sown
And taken time to care,
All that you have grown
The miners stripped bare.

    Let us not forget the rest,
You give us life and nurture us.
We take from you and do not care,
'Till our own lives are treacherous,
Your hills and streams are all but bare.

    And still you give to your children
With all your heart and body.
And we will not give back to you
Until there's nothing there.
By then it is too late,
Our greed has sealed our fate.

				With regrets,
					Michael Melosh

P.S. I hope it's not too late.