Death in the Garden of Eden

No caterpillar manifested in my fennel last season, and
the milkweed failed to host a single Monarch. Is it my garden
that fails? Will a hummingbird ever nest again outside my kitchen?
Will she remember her babes? How do I measure the small losses
that accrue, almost unnoticed? Will the day come when
the sky is nothing but gloom. Grey berries scattered over the land,
wild mustard taking over hillsides, red algae smothering fish
and acid ocean dissolving coral reefs? Now, no swimming allowed
at Mother’s Beach. Whales wash ashore, up and down the coast.
Soon there’ll be no one left, begging me to save the orcas
and no person left to save, and I ask you: Can burned Sequoias
return; what happened to the pines? Bark beetles? Fungus?
If it’s not this, it’s that. Will the wild Nootka rose outlast this
plague? Will a lone survivor of our species wander the wasteland,
chanting Om shantih, shantih, shantih, his boots filling
with sand? Human. Animal. Rock. Tree. Paper. No longer a game.
Gaia, scissored away by human greed. The sun, barely visible,
hidden behind a grey curtain. This play coming to an end,
scrim hanging, pall over everything. High up in the dark sky
a few trees continue to sway, blossomless, their shallow roots
grabbing the dun soil.