Friday, February 17, 2012

Ode to the Red Cedar


WE WRITE POEMS
asks for an Ode to a Tree

ODE TO THE RED CEDAR

Two hundred years, and more, ago
The mighty cedars used to grow,
In forests dense and deep and green.
But white men came upon the scene
Red Cedars fell like wounded men,
Never to be seen again.
Men made their masts, they made their doors,
Their wooden ceilings and their floors.
They shipped them off to other lands,
Commerce making its demands.
The eucalyptus, much more slender,
Was not requested to surrender.
But cedars were decapitated,
The forests utterly decimated.
Oh to have wandered in the shade
That glorious stands of cedar made!
But they have gone, they've disappeared;
All of them, all of them were cleared.
Yet still the people do not learn;
They saw, they pillage, cut and burn.
And, in the mighty Amazon,
Already far too much has gone.
Too late humanity mourns its failure
And the Red Cedars of Australia.
*
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COLD HEARTED

I drew a picture of your heart,
The one you offered me,
The one that you described as just as
Loving as could be.
But I didn't draw on paper
With passionate purple ink,
And I didn't add some roses
With their petals palely pink.
And I didn't climb up in the clouds
And draw your heart up there
It's outline etched in fluffy clouds
Up in the blue, blue air.
I drew your heart in melting snow,
With footsteps stomping round,
A heart as cold and devious
As the bitter winter ground.
And tomorrow, when the thaw arrives,
Your heart will disappear.
The sun will obliterate your heart,
And I won't shed a tear!
*

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