Green Accounting - A Ledger in 2147

Green Accounting in 2147

When Trends were gods, and Truth a pliant maid,

We bent the knee, and we the ledger swayed.

Our Accounting wore a verdant gown—

Yet naught was green but cloth and cover's crown.

Within, the ink ran black as raven's wing,

And cold Church-blue for every profit-string.

The Right-hand page held nothing that was right—

All debts, all dues, all daylight turned to night;

The Left-hand side, bereft of all that's left—

Equity stolen, heritage bereft.

Our Sales climbed high as Icarus in flame,

But Profit withered—shrivelled, pale, and lame.

We cried to Income Tax: “O stoop and bow!

We have no gold—but see our glorious thou!”

For higher Revenue, higher grew the Loan—

Each million sold, a million more we moan.

And Media post, with trumpet and with drum,

Proclaimed our harvest—though the fields were numb.

We spoke of Cost as though a distant shore,

We spoke of Profit—but we meant no more

Than paper triumph, gilded epitaph,

A balance sheet that learned to smirk and laugh.

In People’s name, and Planet’s sacred dust,

We penned our sonnets—and we broke our trust.

O lyric stanzas! O green-rinsed refrain!

We sang of sun, and sowed the acid rain.

Now mix the scarlet with the emerald dye—

What hues arise beneath this alibi?

Not gold, not hope, not harvest, and not grace—

But brown as mud, and shame upon its face.

Brown—the slow rot of principle deferred,

Brown—the true colour of the spoken word

When action dies, and policy is breath,

And all that’s left is capital in death.

Why should you reap, where you have never sown?

Why claim the fruit, when you have only known

The husk, the gloss, the magazine, the boast—

While we, the masters, carve the holy roast?

Your pain—the feedstock of our grand design,

Our gain—the dividend of your decline.

We write Provisions like a priest writes prayers,

Contingencies—our trapdoors and our snares;

Reserves and Surplus—fortresses of fear,

Where we hoard light, and keep your ledger clear

Of any fact that might our game undo—

For we are many, and the mark is few.

O masters of the T-account, beware!

The red and black are not your final pair.

Beneath the green, the soil cracks and weeps;

The balance trembles while the balance sleeps.

Tame not the truth with clause and footnote’s art—

For ledgers have a conscience, and a heart.

And when the audit of the stars is read,

Not green, nor red, nor black shall raise the dead—

But only gold, if gold were earned with pain,

And only trust, if trust returns again.

Till then, we bend—but let us bend to mend,

Not to pretend.

For poetry in profit’s name is vain—

But poetry in truth—that breaks the chain.