The Last Tree

 

We cannot resist. There is pleasure in destruction. There is a cruel streak in humans.

One of the favourite stalls at the fairground is the one where people smash crockery with wooden balls. The line up the plates and dishes and people pay to delight at the way they smash, crash and fall.

• The kid with the airgun sitting in his backyard and picking birds off the line, feeling a leap of pleasure as each one falls.
• The idiots with the chainsaws who ringed a giant redwood to put an end to its two and a half thousand year life.
• It goes on relentless as children’s first reaction is to stamp on the bug.

Life is not sacred.

There is fun to be had at the expense of forest and creature.

Even at the animal park yesterday where they had two amazing Eagle Owl fledglings on the lawn a man with his two children joked that they should be shot and eaten.

Yet we are part of that web of life. When it is gone we will follow. We cannot live on concrete alone.

 

 

The Last Tree

 

When the last tree fell

There was laughter.

As the chainsaw bit

There had been jeers;

As the trunk crashed

And branches splintered

There were cheers.

 

As the last bird

Was blown

From the sky

There was a whoop

Of joyful triumph.

 

As the last Chimp

Was hacked

There was a smacking

Of lips.

 

There were no tears.

 

The tears were saved for later.

But when they finally fell

There was a flood.

 

By then it was far too late.

 

Opher 15.5.2016