On Ownership

Long before men, trees were planting the earth;
every forest, by right, is their field;
every sapling an heir, owning the land by birth
but, sadly, men not trees axes, wield.

 

And axes are weapons that, helpless trees, wound
and its brute force that gives men their right;
its brute force by which this whole earth has been bound;
property: all that, men, cannot fight.

 

And so men own this Earth; tyrants, merchants and kings
not bequeathed by some will in the stars
but, as scorpion owns all he kills with his stings,
by their armies and weapons and wars.

 

Yes the farmer and fisherman own Earth and Sea
as the lion owns each fawn it slays
and your home, you own; you and your family
till a strong arm can take it away.

 

But if we would ask, "Who is Natures true heir?"
we would find our land rights to be wrongs;
that the earth was bequeathed not to own but to share;
that its we who, to this Earth, belong.

 

We would find that we own this great Earth no more
than enslaved man or woman or child
and would try to, to our Mother Earth, restore
all of her we have robbed and defiled.

 

We would think of ourselves, not as owners of Earth
but as merely her family and friends;
like friends, we would love her; love would be her worth
and the slavery of nature would end.

 

But instead, all the riches of love, we'd recieve;
in our hearts, a new revelation;
that great knowledge that poets and mystics achieve
that our spirit and nature are one.