I am the home of many animals

My skin tingles with the feeling of ants, spiders, insects crawling over me

My arms never ache when families of monkeys sit on me, swimming around me

Not until they’re gone

And I have no choice but to watch

My sister is bulldozed

My brother chopped into a hundred pieces

My friends burnt until I no longer recognise them

The smell of ash clogging my nostrils

 

My branches stretch upwards to the sky

Pleading with the Heavens to have Mercy

Do not take another one of my family

Spare them

But the Heavens do not listen

Already swayed over by the gentle promises of Man

Each word laced with something deeper, something crueller

Hidden beneath a pretty smile, a soothing word

 

My body is wide and thick

A strong truck for my friends to shelter behind

I do not blame them for their fear

If I were but a mere ten years old

I too would be scared

These men come and dig up their burrows

Dislodge their hard worked dams

Lose their young

Kill them, I say silently

Destroy them before they destroy us

 

My feet are rooted deep below the surface of the Earth

Stronger than any force Man can imagine

I won’t be moved

They can burn me, chop me

Hack at me with axes made from my blood

We don’t betray each other

Family means more to us than it ever will to them

A word older than Man’s history

You cannot tear us apart

Rip out our roots and we still will live

 

Even as I fall

The ground trembling beneath me

I do not fear – my memory will live on

The birds silence their chirping

The animals still

I close my eyes

I have tried, at least, I can say, to stop this greed

My failure is no clue to another’s death

Success is on the horizon

I can smell it on the breath of the coming children

My eyes stay shut