Corona came shouting STOP!
You heard Greta Thunberg say, How dare you!
Dear David Attenborough agreed then
Jane Goodall said
she was going to plant five million trees.
Stop the traffic, stop the pollution, the bombing,
the rocket launches, the oil tanker spills,
the logging and manufacturing all that junk.
Corona said, And most of all stop torturing
and killing animals in the way you do as if they
can’t feel pain, as if they don’t experience love,
bawling, chasing the trucks carting away their
newborn to be slaughtered.
Lamb of God!
They are sentient, intelligent,
the essence of beauty.
Listen, clean your house, take care with people,
watch yourself because if you don’t,
I just might kill you.
Smoke haze over the big cities clears.
In Delhi you can see the Himalaya again.
America burns.
In the sanctuary of the Wombat forest.
I rake the debris on the forest floor and burn off
praying that summer will not breathe
her fiery breath on this place,
all hell breaking loose.
Under the ancient trees where
the Dja Dja Wurrung women gave birth,
I see an archway
Something moves amongst the leaves,
the wind perhaps
The spirits of those not considered worthy of life,
chanting their song of the Dreamtime.
The trees remember them.
Listen! I place my head against
the gnarled lumps of bark
about the size of an infant’s head
The hollow interior of the tree is quiet
The sun shines its rays through of the dense
lofty branches of the forest that meet like
a vaulted ceiling of Gothic architecture.
This is my chapel, this is my cathedral.
This is beautiful! Your cathedral of trees reminds of the old growth forests in the north part of Michigan, where I grew up. The 400-year-old pine trees are so tall, but so inviting, and you can hardly see the sky through the boughs when you look up.