Why don’t we stop?

What if we all just stopped again?

The scientists say the birds sung quieter in 2020.
These days here they scream, they screech, they shriek.
Sometimes a cry can be so loud I jump.
I guess they’re trying to make themselves heard
above the din.
The coastal construction.
The pleasure seekers driving here, there and everywhere.
The domestic noise,
the teenager drummer over the back fence
pounding the skins for hours every evening.
Letting off steam I guess, after another day of school.
My daughter works in a high school now.
She says the kids are out control.
They swear, they walk around the classroom any time,
They laugh at the teachers.
The worst kid, the one with major problems,
throws chairs around when he goes off.

But I digress,
it’s all just symptoms you see.
Stressed out kids. Freaked out birds.
Covid cases on the rise.
How about we all just stopped again?

But no, that’s not to be.
We have to save the economy.
Forget the fires burning out of control.
Ignore the droughts and flooding rains.
We must go on, it’s imperative.
If we stopped, we’d have to think.
We’d have to look at the mess we’ve made.

prompt: https://earthweal.com/2022/07/18/earthweal-weekly-challenge-in-the-wake-of-progress/