The Birth of Continents

Subduction zones, where up and down's the same,
Where land thrusts up, earthquakes leveling homes,
Where lava rises from volcanic domes,
Are where the Earth prefers to kill and maim.

Here forests can be flattened, burned, destroyed,
And people killed as houses crumble, crack,
Collapse -- a pyroclastic flow attack
Cannot be fought whatever you've employed.

One would not blame the genius who could stop
Destruction of this kind, the lives he'd save,
Eliminating the tsunami wave --
We'd celebrate as human deaths would drop.

But unless land is always being built,
The Earth would be all ocean, full of silt.