True Values

I’ve lived for near three score and ten and seen a thing or two
Of life and death and love and hurt and pleasure
Is it just age or memory that now distorts my view?
Of things that I believe mankind should treasure.

I have seen technology transform the world I’ve known
With mobile phone and aeroplane and car
People are now valued by the property they own
And not by what their like, or who they are.

Our shops are now Cathedrals for materialistic greed
As we strive to own the very latest trash
We seem to be confusing what we want with what we need
Till even time itself converts to cash

So what is this Utopia were trying to achieve?
Why do we grasp at everything man made?
I feel mans not as clever as some of us believe
For nature really leaves us in the shade

Who can build a butterfly, a flower or a bee?
A sunset or the lightning from above
Who can match the vastness of the lonely open sea?
Or the all consuming passion we call love

We can organise a cricket match or grow a bumper crop
These small tasks are well within our power
Yet the second may be ruined and the first be made to stop
When Mother Nature treats us to a shower.

I have walked the earth’s great continents, and sailed the mighty sea
Seen the Pole Star and the wondrous Southern Cross
Throughout these great adventures it was obvious to me
That Mother Nature always was the boss

I have no time for Religion and I don’t believe in God
I'm for Darwin's "Origin of Species"
Nature struggles for survival in ways we think are odd
Whilst we build bombs to blow mankind to pieces

I believe our treasures are the people that we love
To natures diverse beauty we should bow
For if I’m wrong and there is an Almighty up above
I wonder what he thinks of us right now.

roy