Don’t buy any green bananas

Half in jest boon companions say;

Passing years advance the creeping doubts

Each time a new or fancied ailment

Tugs unlooked for at the net-curtained edge

Of wary consciousness

Is this reality?

Or is it an illusion?

A windmill to tilt at on Rocinante reincarnate?

A giant of medicalert magnitude

Or just a vacillating virus

That lurks to spin the windmills of your mind?

 

Don’t buy any green bananas

For enduring health is not guaranteed

On reaching a certain age.

A certain age that grows more uncertain

With every passing year and

Medicine’s solicitous extensions to existence.

The passive proliferation of humanity

In arrogant assumption of entitlement

Nags at nature’s mission to maintain

A habitat for all who inhabit her.

Is this truly our design for life

Or do we but design our own demise?

 

Don’t buy any green bananas

If indeed such foodstuffs will endure.

Our predatory plunder of the planet

Makes such assuredness unsure.

The polar ice reputedly recedes

As weather systems shift around the globe.

Life sustaining water becomes more scarce, and

Flora and fauna that were native to the world

Are extinguished from existence.

Familiar food we currently acquire

May not survive the subtleties of change

To eco-systems caught up in the mire.

 

Don’t buy any green bananas.

Can we merely pass this mantra on?

How will our children tackle this

When they inherit the mantle of decision?

Have we the right to guide them on their way

When we followed such a reckless route in ours?

Should they blindly follow where we led

Or will they bravely find a better plan?

To carry on, expecting different outcomes

Is a sure sign of madness.

And apposite the adage may remain:

Don’t buy any green bananas.