I’ve been standing here

at least a hundred years

and I could stand a hundred more

but now I hear all their machines

moving across the forest floor.

They’re coming to destroy this place,

everything I’ve ever known,

to take the lives of all the trees

and the beings who call them home.

Humanity can only see

from their own point of view.

They see no value in ancient forests.

They’d rather have something new.

I know that soon my end will come.

I know that soon I will be gone

and there will be a mall or parking lot

on the ground I stood upon.

And all the many animals

who’ve lived their whole lives in this place

will have to either flee or die.

That’s the choice they’ll have to make.

And all the plants of every kind

who’ve made this place so grand

will be cut down or bulldozed over

when the humans take this land.

Though they’ll stand in this place every day

they’ll never be aware

of all the beauty that existed,

of all the life that once was here.

No matter if they think we’re worthless

that we have no consciousness,

when a tree falls in the forest

the forest mourns his death.