Bruce Bigelow - I Heard the Pine Trees Screaming

I heard the pine trees screaming,
unmistakable, mournful and shrill.
The roar of the saws was awful,
and I prayed for the trees they’d kill.

The calm of the morning was shattered,
as chaos filled the air.
Across the pond in the distance
was a scene of total despair.

The monstrous trucks and machinery,
had moved in under cover of dark,
Now springing forth into action,
methodically assaulting their mark.

One by one the trees they grabbed,
with huge mechanical claws.
Then severed and ripped from where they stood
with slashing and tearing of saws.

None of the trees escaped the attack,
all of them, the large and the small.
Either harvested or horribly damaged,
till nothing was left at all!

The hillside now chaotically ragged,
a victim of the clear cutting saw
Lies naked and totally abandoned,
a vista so horribly raw.

The trees now gone, no longer a home,
all fauna evicted or killed.
No burrow was left or perch for the owl,
their homes no way to rebuild.

No more the trees to sigh their song,
as the breeze plays softly on their limbs,
And swaying gently in the wind
with sounds heard lovely as hymns.

No more can we listen and walk and talk,
so peacefully in that majestic old wood.
Nor even be able to find our path
made ugly where beauty once stood.

Perhaps in time, half century or so,
when we’re on to eternal dreaming,
The wood will be back for others to love
and I’ll not hear the pine trees screaming.

Bruce Bigelow

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