(header photographs by Harry Waite 1912-2011)

Life Or Debt?

 

Sit on the rock and plainly see

No change perhaps for a million years.

They're growing here, so tall and free

As if in a dream/ midst all your fears.

 

Embrace the trunk/ feel strength and pain;

No life without them: sad but true.

But cousins elsewhere/ mercilessly slain

Change planet's colour to a dirty hue.

 

Carpets of green/ unaware of danger/

Branches aloft/ in prayer to the breeze;

Smoky clouds of chainsaw's anger

Cut life down with savage ease!

 

As brutal teeth slice tender green/

We all on earth stand but condemned

When see/ how wide the victor grins _

Is it only time before the end?

 

But where is hope/ to poor and wronged?

Do we not each bear souls of truth?

How madly drives our social throng

Toward death/ decay and more untruth.

 

Only our minds now hug the trees

So sadly cut in madness torn;

And by the grace of God/ can please

To give him but our lives/ reborn.

 

Let debts be wiped/ no price can pay

The debt to God for life itself;

Share what we own/ in every way

So we undo the greed of self.

 

Jim Wallace 24/12/95