For Nature's Unsung Heroes

I REMEMBER

1Vila SongFor Natures unsung heroes
I remember a night
even more flawless than a smooth, clear pearl.
I remember a night
when the river flowed,
and the clear, lucid water
rushed over the shining stones.
I remember a night
even more mystical than the unicorns
that once strolled through my childhood dreams.
I remember a night
when birds in all different colors came
when they danced and sang,
bouncing on the twigs we used
to make our favorite tree house.
I remember when the branches swayed to the percussion
made by the rushing river,
that brushed over the shining stones,
that carried the gleaming fishes made of silver and gold.
Today,
what used to be the river
that brushed over the shining stones
that carried the gleaming fishes made of silver and gold,
is now a desiccated trail
Where the fish that once swished through the lucid waters
now lies a pile of debris covered in brown.

2Vila SongSince 1964. 3 billion birds in North America alone
have vanished
So what used to fill the sky with song
Are now silent on the sidewalk
Because they didn't know what glass was
Or we used them as hats
Or because we decimated their air and homes
Until all they had to perch on was a nest of electric wire
1 know,
I know that today, tomorrow, and even the year after that,
that the night I once remembered so vividly,
the night the birds sang and danced,
the night the river sang a sonata as she rushed over those shiny stones
that carried the gleaming fishes made of silver and gold,
that served as percussions for the trees that once whispered
that are now scraps of paper lying on our desks,
will never breathe again.

I know that
I won't ever be able to share
the song of joy that rushed through me,
or the serenity that whispered through my bones
at Saturday noon with a cup of chamomile.
1 know that on the day
we start protecting our final tree,
on the day we can't just go swim in the sea
When the sea becomes a desert of bones
and on the day our children do not know what a bunny is,
When I try to tell my children about that beautiful night,
When dreams and truth took flight
They'll think my story of the beauty that once was
is just another myth,
Just another fairy tale to amuse them with