Three Steps

I don't want this architecture degree,
the $60,000 debt and 90 hour weeks
just so I can get the job
that will change my life.

No.

I want the job
that will change their lives.

Why am I scared to admit the truth?
I want to change the world!
They get nervous when I say it
but I've stopped hiding.

I went to school.
I designed "sustainable" hotels.
I followed all their rules
And still I wanted more.

I went to Lima,
I met people in the slums.
"Human settlements"
they're so elegantly called.

I cried with all my body,
paralyzed by the sight
of children walking home from school
through dust they had no way to escape.

Step one: design them showers.
I used Nature's own designs
to recycle the costly water
children carried home on foot.

I hear poetry in the screams
of Our Great Mother
whose children are wasting
her gifts and their lives

while their buildings scrape the sky
and architects forget to ask
where do the showers go when
there's no fresh water left?

And who will rent the offices
when people are scrounging for food
because the temperature's too high
and the farms are all too far?

Mr. Politician, I can't hear your ignorance
over the screams of OUR planet.
Nothing drowns them out and I can't stop,
my body sobs along.

Hey, are you listening?
Do you know what's up in Bangladesh?
Did you hear how millions are drowning
because of your addiction to oil?

My dream job doesn't exist yet.
I know the why but not the how,
the what but not the when.
Step two: MS in GeoDesign.

Sustain-ability,
that's step three.
Uniting people, buildings and nature,
building holistic communities, together.

Societies of living systems,
cities that are resilient, people
that are healthy and strong, that
is my dream.

Architect: it's not a job.
It's a call to the power of the universe.
The power to inspire change,
to build hope.

REDUCE stupidity and arrogance;
realize freedom and equality
and design a world where we all
have water to shower, clean air to breathe.

REUSE profit and power;
prioritize community-welfare
and remember we are all
children of the same Earth and stars.

RECYCLE laziness and complacency;
live up to those ideals and values
about which we talk the talk because
now, my friends, it's time to walk.