Broad winged elder raven circles high,

Surveying hills and valleys below.

Sharp eyes check each cut by human scythe,

But soon its aging wings begin to slow.

Redwood pinnacle on a distant ridge,

Bids dear old friend alight and rest,

A chance to ponder a world unhinged,

Discuss those flaws they most detest.

One thousand years the redwood watched,

From towering vantage point unexcelled.

Sentinel raven too, long since he hatched,

Through the decades, his wisdom swelled.

“Friend raven, sir, what have you seen today?

Pray tell me the ominous tide has turned,

That the festering fever of our dismay

Will finally ebb, logic no longer spurned.”

“My brother”, spoke the raven, “I wish it were so,

But wherever I glide, cast my weary eye,

I see waste, carnage and my worries grow.

That the end be near, I cannot now deny.”

“Raven, there must be means to sway these fools.

Please serve as Mother Nature’s emissary.

Among us we can surely craft the tools,

To save the earth from total disarray.”

“Where do we begin this ominous task,

Born through millennia of benign neglect,

Fed by ignorance in deceptive mask,

Worn by creatures of tainted intellect?”

“They penetrate the oceans, air and plains,

In numbers overwhelming, escape denied.

Our planetary share does rapidly drain,

Yet in these evil deeds they take such pride.”

*

“A tired and tortured earth now in rebellion,

Will counter soon with weapons of defense,

Halting the pounding tread of human legion.

 Climate, disease will thin their ranks immense.”

And so the raven assumed his vital role,

Brought proclamation across land and sea.

And on the doorstep of every leader bold,

Stiffly stood, delivering his urgent plea.

“Stupid avian! Be gone you brainless bird!

Your scrawny hulk does block the pathway,

Through which my growing riches herd.”

The raven shook his head and strode away.

In following decades, the spectacle unfolded,

As two friends watched from towering ridge,

 Earth now scorched, infected and flooded,

Slowly cleansed as Nature builds her bridge.

G. Gregory Tooker    c.      June, 2014