Here is a poem I found in a great book that I am reading. I felt the need to share it. It is from the book: “Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug are Killing North America’s Great Forests” by Andrew Nikiforuk
Requiem for a Forest
There’s a region in central BC,
Where the money it’s said grew on trees.
But the pine trees turned red,
For the pine trees were dead,
And the problem is one of degrees.
Now the climate is warmer, you see,
Which is good for the bugs that eat the trees.
So the beetles are fine,
And on the pine trees they’ll dine,
Turn up the heat up a bit more if you please.
Then the government made up a plan,
To deal with this blight on the land.
Let’s cut all the dead pine trees down,
Haul the logs to the mills in the towns.
But the mills wanted green trees instead.
For they are worth more than trees which are dead.
So they clearcut the spruce and fir,
Forest that are became forests that were.
The dead pine will be left to decay,
While the green trees are all hauled away,
Till the wood supply’s down,
Cash and jobs then leave town,
And it’s those who remain that will pay.
Soon a landscape once heavily treed,
From its arboreal cloak will be freed,
And the rubble that’s left,
Of all the trees now bereft,
Is a legacy of corporate greed.
