Humans do not appreciate what they have
Until it petered away
Like a smoke goes into oblivion
when it mixes with air.
We suffer,
Therefore, we value.

The climate changing is a hoax
until the sun burns
your children skin,
like a volcano burns a mountain,
destroying the skin
that it should make glow.

This is what does happen, in life:

if you don’t take good care of things that brightly reflect on you, out of unconditional love, and you nonchalantly push it away, the memories of the love later comes back haunting you; because one only miss the light when it is getting dark.

Until every avocado
becomes barren.
Until bears are substitute for dragons
during night tales
You tell your children
While narrating how
The Antarctic ice melted,
Until your great-grandchildren
Only see nature’s beauty
inside photographs.

The climate change will be a hoax
To you, ‘cause you won’t be here
When carrying lifeless bodies
Becomes the only employment
Every human being does
Because of the lack of pure air.

Idowu Odeyemi is a Nigerian poet and essayist. He is the winner of the 2019 Merak Magazine Annual Literary Recognition Award for Best Poem of the Year. He was shortlisted for the 2018 Nigerian Students Poetry Prize. He is a reader at Perhappened Magazine. His poems are published or forthcoming on Perhappened magazine, Door is a Jar, Constellate journal, among others.