27. The Gaia Chain-saw Murders
At least the Old Ones wondered
about the sound of falling trees, but
their angry sons saw only dollars
beneath Earth's green, green tents. The
forests fell and we, long deafened
by scientists’ rational tantrums,
heard nary a scream, nary a moan.
Their mother watched, and heard, and
weighed her options with the patience
that comes from some billions
of years of rearing and training
so many kinds of errant children.
We, blind as well from too much
atomic light, kept right on cutting
and spraying, defoliating, and praying
to our impotent, six-inch godlet.
Who heard the song of leafless trees?
Who, hearing, fell bosom to womb
and smelled the mother's rotting breath
and heard her old, old cries? I think
it doesn't matter now that we
are deaf and blind and still cut
cut cutting away. They keen. She hears.
And only fools and poets and Saturday
morning listeners to Bob and Betty's
garden show on KPRC 950 sing back.
