  | ||
| Poetry SCORCHED EARTH By James Desmond O'Hara from Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland living in New Mexico USA. Only after the last tree has been cut down Only after the last river has been poisoned Only after the last fish has been caught Only then will you find money cannot be eaten -Cree Prophecy I am lonely for the lakes and for the mountains for the hazel woods and for the cloaks of oak I have been to Ireland said the stranger You do not have any trees You have poured troubled water from a stream into my cup We had abundance The ash when it was cut bled holly battled oak for supremacy pine was peaceful The squirrel could travel from Dingle to Cork without setting foot on the ground above the most favoured habitations of the fairies Empire said no to the trees Thus went a casual extinction of the wolves and the red squirrels and the red deer With the sounds of the axe was the waste of the woods and the clutches of eggs and the God-sent sweet apples honey and wax There were dearths of victuals and the pipings from beaks of little birds being nursed in their heritage The Roman Church did not sustain the enthusiasm for trees preferring the tonguing of bells We were left in the end with a naked and a dreary view in our dwelling place in the cradle of our race Trees went into the East India Trading Company ships into wine barrel staves for Spain and France London after the fire demanded all of the raiment The Great Gods of Ireland were dying prospering imaginations were dimming reality the bodyguards were beardless boys There was a war against the trees the sicknesses of foreign kings brought us barren fields Underfoot acorns and yellow-topped nuts were decayed the wildernesses became gardens of disarray We do not have many of the real trees anymore there are no expectations here of majesties saplings are eaten by roaming sheep and Japanese deer The glossy yews in their eternal life grow their roots about to paradise
| ||
 | ||
 |