Once there were trees.
Once there were trunks, branches leaves,
crowding the sky,
fighting for the joy of sunlight.
Once there were redwoods,
pines, oaks, maples,
stretching from horizon to horizon,
growing and blooming and living and dying.
Once there were trees.

Once there were people.
Once there were new ones, two-leggers,
walking from the north,
in search of the land of the sun.
Once they were peaceful,
skin like their redwoods,
painted with berries and life,
feathers of the sky adorning their hair.
Once there were people.

Once there were men.
Once there were horses, armor,
sweeping from the east,
looking for gold.
Once they brought iron,
bright swords and hard axes,
sticks that boomed death,
and the forest burned with the flame of civilization.
Once there were men.

Once there were cities.
Once there were chainsaws, axes,destroying the forest,
looking for space to build.
Once there was steel,
horses becoming cars,
silver buildings rising where the trees had stood,
people like ants moving about.
Once there were cities.

Once there was technology.
Once there was silicon, DNA,
people tapping away at lettered keys,
transferring knowledge.
Once there were scientists,
presidents, speeches, scandals, bombs,
fire and steel killing
in honor of a loving god.
Once there was war.
Once there was famine.
Once there was pestilence.
Once there was technology-

Once there were trees.