Never forget the trees.
Soon all we may have of them
are distant memories.
They seemed so stolid and secure,
able to bow but seldom break
in heavy winds, for centuries before
we all but ignored the earth
below and skies above
which clasped their roots
in iron bonds of love,
and watered them with gentled rains
formed in clouds of warmth
passing over frozen ice fields again
and again and again.
We have become uprooted as well.
The treasures of nations replaced
by campaigns of disinformation
to make us not pay attention
to earth’s disposable survival.
Lake Mead dries up
while Kentuckians and Pakistanis
flee to higher ground
and thousands hunger
for grains of wheat and barley and rye.
Hunger and thirst are pandemic.
There is no real question why.
Only, why have we waited so long to try
to change our senseless
and destructive ways.
Remember the trees, and ocean’s waves,
and fields of red poppies and lavender,
and groves of olives and vines of grapes.
Remember the trees
on fire or drowning
as we soon may be.
Remember the trees.
annarino writes 