They Were.

They were small, loud quaint things, in the early years. 

Born far too fast into the world, like a premature child their first experience was a desperate fight for survival. 

It brought tears to my eye, when they took their first steps around the planet.

They learned many skills across the course of their lives: fire, agriculture, avionics, rocketry and atomic fusion. 

Their first piece of art, as is the course for all children, was a hand stencil, paint blown through a bone onto the wall of a cave.  I was so proud.

Of course I won’t recount every moment of their upbringing. 

Like any child they were obsessed with dinosaurs at one point, then spacecraft and then - when a little older, an unstoppable yearning for exploration, which ultimately was the reason they left me.

They didn’t treat me with the greatest respect, but such is the natural progression of a child into adolescence.

Thinking that they can rule everything, and angry at all of those who doubt their abilities.

I struck back sometimes and it broke my heart to do so.

But the earthquakes made them stronger, the forest fires made them smarter and the volcanic ash eventually nourished their lands.

One day, I hope they’ll call me. I hope that their children will learn who raised their parents.

I wonder whether they think of themselves as the same people who left me, all those thousands of years ago.

I wonder whether I raised them well. I wonder whether, as they conquest the stars they will think of me. 

I wonder whether they think of their Mother, Earth.