By Shem Onderi
For all of us,
By the few who fought to nurture,
Some gave their days to plant trees,
Yet few live now
To breathe the air they once protected.
Some trees sprouted by chance,
Others from scattered seeds.
They rose tall, wove a canopy,
Sheltered the tender shrubs beneath,
And together, a forest was born.
No hand tilled that soil,
The heavens sent their rains in season.
Blossoms opened,
Birds and bees feasted freely
On nectar, sap, and song.
The forest life was whole—
Strength feeding on frailty,
A perfect, endless web of survival,
Until humans came
To rip abundance apart.
They burned, they cut,
They felled the young before their time.
Life was snuffed out,
Nature desecrated,
Animals with no refuge fell silent.
The trees faded—
Stumps torn for firewood,
Habitats crushed into ash.
And in destroying the forest,
Humanity destroyed itself,
Breathing only
The pungent ghost of what once lived