love letters for the end of the world: vii

when your only warmth is fire,
when your heart has been uncrossed,
and when wealth to you means naught but gold,
then know this: you have lost.
 
when glory holds more weight to you
than all your brothers' lives,
and power speaks in gunshots louder
than its victim's cries,
 
when greed so grips you that you'd grip
a world no longer yours,
and heedlessly to those succeeding you
your fist is closed,
 
(should mankind be a ship, so you have set us on this course,)
 
when hardly could the sail be lowered
nor its wheel turned 'round...
then all is lost, and you, you will not live  
to see it found.