Global mourning

In Competition No. 2997 you were invited to submit an obituary for planet Earth.
 
It was a smallish but varied and heartfelt entry. John Whitworth earns the bonus fiver and his fellow winners are rewarded with £25 apiece. Honourable mentions go to C.J. Gleed, D.A. Prince and Duncan Forbes.
 

In an obituary
There’s no room for bitchery,
So let’s say the earth
Had some things of worth.
 
Angels and fairies,
Cats and canaries,
Camels and kiddyoes,
Attenborough videos,
 
Woodlands for walking in,
Teashops for talking in,
Kitchens for cooking in,
Mirrors for looking in.
 
Pity you blew it,
But how did you do it?
God alone knows,
And that’s me I suppose.
John Whitworth
 
We are sorry to learn that Earth has passed away. She was 4,540,000,001 years old, and one of the many children of Chaos and Vacancy, who still live at the far end of the universe, and to whom we extend our sympathies. In recent centuries, she had been a little erratic in her orbit around Helios, an instability variously ascribed to excess weight, and the shifting of her polar icecaps.