Hands Off

A beautiful landscape all clustered with trees Among the bright flowers the buzzing of bees A babbling brook and warm summer breeze The frolic of beavers on the cool beach sand The air that they breathe unscented by man No human hands have touched this land Look in the distance, what’s that bright gleam Sun glinting off new shovels and axes of a ditch digging team Man is coming to clear; then erect steel beam Work is done at a feverish pace The buyers are anxious to move into the place The work now done has left on the site A skyscraper shinning like a star in the night But, the truth of this building is devastation widespread Can’t find the brook; as it is now a dry bed Old growth trees are cut down and dead Birds have nowhere to give birth Flowers are crushed under earth Bees are unable to find pollen of worth The beach is now a slab of concrete Never again to bear the beavers feet