The Tree's Life

The leaves are my mouth, breathing the air,

Though this air is polluted,

Slowly killing myself and everything around it.

All around me my people are being befooted,

The younglings, replacing them, getting planted in neat rows surrounded by netting.

As I try to give the humans fresh air as I breath out,

They smother it with their burnt tobacco.

Sometimes little animals like a possum come to confide in me,

I open up a hollow to give them a fresh supply of air.

These people, each not living long, act as though they know everything,

Act as though we have treated them wrong,

Act as though we are oblivious to what is happening,.

However I don’t know what it’s like for us over the great blue expanse,

The blue expanse that feeds me through the soil.

After seeing so many animals go to extinction,

I know I am the sanctuary people will chain themselves to, to help me.

Did you guess what I am,

I am the mighty eucalyptus tree,

The one that is dying from sadness,

For what the world has become.