Poem: Whispers in the Trees

I have hunted and walked in wilderness and heard my predecessor's moccasined foot upon the path.

Whispers in the Trees When Indians roamed these advantaged lands,     before we made of them the spotted-owls     of their culture and their forest turned to desert They honored the silent tread of moccasins Came and went softly, left no mark,     knowing something of how legacy’s defined But these are modern times and modern men,     who smear the ink of prophecy across a page     and speak of private-land and private-rights Suddenly, and if the word seems a strange term,     then think of a century among a million of its kind This land, this Earth, this sphere is private now Privacy means someone’s in and someone’s out Fences, walls, doors and darkness define the term Pave it, drill it, cut it down, it’s mine alone to use Keep off, keep out, keep back until it blows away It’s blown away before, died in my father’s arms So trust me once again, it’s mine by laws I wrote How came this to be in an eyewink of the world,     that moment lost among eons when this blue sphere     governed itself, balanced gracefully among its needs In an instant we civilized it, turned it against us A single flash in lightning skies, this ownership stole the keys to treasures we know nothing of The laws of sustenance preclude the laws of man What cannot or will not be sustained must fall The laws of government and armies of the world     mean not a thing when forests die and grassland fails That red voice, whose sons and sons would tell us so Stolen from them now, it whispers in the trees

This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection BROKEN PIECES available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats.