Lament For The Trees

This morning I walked through the tears of the earth,
over damp meadow grass, through the weeping stream
as water washed over its time worn stones,
producing, this day, the unbearable scream

of a parent who has lost an adorable child,
or a love, once cherished, but now denied.
My every foot plant through the whole mournful walk
caused all living things to sob or to cry.

Why? the Fox asked. Why this fate?
And his voice was joined by the Mockingbird’s plea:
Do you not see before you the wound that you’ve caused?
We grieve the deaths of magnificent trees

who stood strong and tall day after day,
and now just look, what do you say
to the squirrel whose family was crushed in the ground,
to the birds, my own, whose songs are now sounds

of the painful cracking of living hearts?
Why! Say why the necessity came
to fell these ancient and elegant trees
and cause this relentless, unbearable pain.

And there, strewn before me on the forest floor,
severed limbs, broken branches, piles of debris
that yesterday stood so regal and proud,
earth’s gracious gift of magnificent trees.

This morning I walked through the tears of the earth
and I looked to the open, sun-filled sky,
to the Eagle floating in the shifting wind
as his call echoed down, please tell me why.