Price to Pay

It was the driest year, another in a long line of dry years. Warm too. Way too warm. Even the prickly pear pads in the front yard had shriveled down to spiny, burnt looking taco chips. No rain for months and none coming. This is what I get for taking the fat, safe, and short-sighted path -- big SUVs, carbon belching greed and grandiosity. I sat there running the air conditioning, munching on my super-sized burger, the one that had come from the slash and burn rain forest ranchers. It felt good to be so full, but the excess fat around my middle told the real story, the one with consequences for behaviors, for laziness and apathy. I knew. I knew. I should have seen it coming, done something different. I see now that it was my chance, my only chance, not to get all melodramatic or anything. But that was it. I could have gone after the one shot I had at giving a chance to the next generation. If only I could have seen up ahead, into the future, to how it would have turned out, I might have found the guts to throw it all on the line, to bet the farm, trade caution for clarity and passion, for a lean life of shared purpose to bring the planet back from the brink. If there were any justice, and I mean real justice, I and my generation would be tried as criminals who stole from our children. Instead, the days pass now dry as dust, too long, and give me no rest, only time to mull over how it might have been, to turn guilt into action, even if  it's too late. The price of redemption is giving it all away.