Whispers of the Forgotten

They stood in peace, unarmed, unbound Their voices lost beneath our sound We took the skies, we stole the seas And claimed dominion as we pleased Their homes were burned, their young were torn We turned their grace to fields forlorn For every gain, a life was lost And still we refused to count the cost How much blood will stain our hands Before we heed the earth's demands We broke the wild, we caged the free And called it human destiny But their eyes reflect what we deny The truth we've buried deep inside This world is theirs as much as ours Yet we devour and leave it scarred We crowned ourselves the kings of all But built an empire doomed to fall The tiger's roar, the whale's lament Are testaments to lives misspent We call it sport, we call it gain But cannot mask the endless pain Each trophy hung, each prize displayed A testament to the debt unpaid How much blood will stain our hands Before we heed the earth's demands We broke the wild, we caged the free And called it human destiny But their eyes reflect what we deny The truth we've buried deep inside This world is theirs as much as ours Yet we devour and leave it scarred Do you feel the weight of their fading cries Do you see the guilt in their dying eyes We've chained the beauty we once admired Extinguished lives to fuel desires What will we say when the silence falls When nature's voice no longer calls Will shame consume or will we rise To heal the wounds beneath the skies Look around at what we've become Destroyers blind, deaf, and numb But there's still time to break the chain To cleanse the earth of human stain If we'd just bow, confess our sin Perhaps the wild would let us in For this is not just our domain And to forget that is to profane