Earth

Microplastics lodged in Arctic ice
A thin layer of carbon embedded in the earth’s crust
Digital waste in garbage heaps in Nairobi,
where children forage for broken laptops;
lithium batteries hang from bare skin

Water

The Alberta tar sands are black tributaries
criss-crossing each other like veins in Canada’s flesh
Glaciers dissolve into an ocean
which will one day spill into Dhaka
Synthetic fertilizer sinks into acid soil

Fire

Scorching days render the fertile crescent impotent
The Amazon rainforest burns hotter than Bolsonaro’s denial
Copper is used for wiring, roofing and medicine,
formed through a toxic smelting process
which leaves hills of slag behind

Air

Power plants are the lungs of civilization,
breathing carbon into the atmosphere each day
Extracted gas splutters into power grids
Smog billows through cities
like a hungry brown spectre

Space

Radioactive fallout enveloped Chernobyl,
invisible to the naked eye,
expanding through space
Industry turns nature into Standing Reserve,
into empty space, into a car park lot

Consciousness

Consciousness, ineffable, hard to grasp,
known to us through feeling and thought.
AI scientists wave technological wands,
build computational systems and neural networks,
so that experience unfolds from a silicon substrate?