Green Charades

Riverdave Owen

9/18/13

Two Pileated woodpeckers  

Sat on a lonely limb, 

Below dead trees were strewn about

The sight was rather grim.

I can’t believe the human race

One woodpecker bemoaned,

Is so downright improvident 

Their sanity disowned.

To uproot all these lofty trees

That line both swamp and creek,

Then ship them off to far off lands

It sounds like doublespeak.

His feathered friend then turned and asked

What now will be the fate,

Of our ancestral nesting trees 

Might they incinerate?

The former said, A big machine 

Makes pellets from these trees,

To burn for electricity

A life of modern ease.

With outlets stamped on every wall

They’ll charge their mobile phones,

While central heating day and night

Will warm their winter bones.

The feathered friend sat silently

Averse to verbalize,

And pondered how his loss was seen

Through pellet users’ eyes.

With such divergent circumstance

How could it reconcile?

We face demise of habitat 

They pad their own lifestyle!

The former bird then dropped a turd

He felt his friend’s distress,

Then bravely spoke the ghastly truth

For all the dispossessed,

Those at the other end of this

Vile trans-Atlantic trade,

Get credits from their governments

Pursuing green charades!