Should aliens appear one day they may ask of us
what’s it like, life on this Planet Earth
And should their interrogatory be aimed at me
I may reply
It’s like the mountains and the sea
it’s like the forests and jungles
like the deserts and the plains
it’s like clouds and deep blue skies
like blazing sunsets and golden sunrise
It’s like creatures large and small
like floral gardens and blooming glades in spring
like thunder and lightning it’s like rain snow hail and sleet
it’s like city town and country
like a van Gogh Starry Night
like a Tolstoy War and Peace
it’s like Dorothy’s OZ or Alice’s Wonderland
like Copland’s Our Town and Appalachian Spring
It’s like Eiffel's Tower and the Statue of Liberty
it’s like Nebraska corn huskers and the Kansas City Chiefs
like Arizona’s Grand Canyon and Nepal’s Mt. Everest
like Africa’s Serengeti and the Steppes of Russia
like the running of the bulls in Pomploma
like Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
like a 50 Cent and Nicki Minaj Rap Song
like Muddy Waters Blues and the Beetles Rock and Roll
like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue
like a Langston Hughes poem Let America be America Again
like MacDonald’s Domino’s and KFC
like Monopoly, GI Joe Barbie and frozen custard
It’s like IBM GM AT&T AARP NAACP NRA and FDIC
It’s like a petri dish of proliferating and decaying humanity
tweeting friending and unfriending on Facebook
like Walmarts filled with smart phones oil cans and jelly jars
like Amazon the river the jungle and the online Mega Merchandiser
Oh I almost forgot it’s like hurricanes tornadoes volcanoes
wild fires tsunamis terrorists and mass murders
It’s like drunks addicts and homeless on the street
like refugees in camps and immigrants detained and
caged at the border
like plagues famine depressions and pandemics spread worldwide
people starving hospitalized and dying en masse
it’s like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer
it’s like greed power and corruption run rampant
like Genghis Khan
Attila the Hun
Hitler
Stalin
Saddam Hussein
Putin
and Trump
I could go on and on but we’re running short on time
Life on the planet is like smoggy city air and treading on thin ice
like putrefied water and out of whack thermostat rising
it’s like glaciers and ice shelves rapidly melting away
it’s like good people who care and those who couldn’t give a damn
It’s like one huge run-on sentence without any punctuation
Come back in a century or so and we’ll see what gives then
For certain, life on Earth is like up for grabs and like your
guess is as good as mine
What’s it like on the planet from where you come
-30-
Chris Hanch 8-10-2020
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