Where are all the Trees?

This post features a poem inspired by our experience of cycling through miles upon miles of farmfields and deforested lands. The poem is a creative reflection on the causes of deforstation, largely linked to the oppressive angimal agriculture system, and unchecked consumerism.

A poignant question emerges, one which you can answer in real life by way of taking action for the animals. We individuals hold so much power to affect change in our own hands.

We’ve cycled 1,500 miles from
Sheep to bluestained sheep
Whisps of wool weave across
Horizons so baren, they bleat

Long ago trees now vanished
Still the echo of birdsong remains
A hollow memory cried out by
the lone cuckoo, who reigns

Here and there, a feather stands
defiant among dung and other
signs of our insatiable hunger
When will we learn to love our lands?

Pedals turn, world spins
A thousand trees grown for lumber
A thousand lambs run to mothers
A thousand mothers taken to slaughter;

their babies too, killed at 10 weeks old.

All these beings —— for commodity
Limbs grown over and over again
What if they were here wholly for
their own pleasure to live?

There is a way to grow a world
Where animals are free to simply be
Branches stretch from sea to shining sea
Red squirrels connect all the canopies

And what of the humans?
They thrive in this circle too
No longer caught by barbed wire
Their voices rise from solitude!

Thinkers, creators and visionaries
We cycle our way to discovery
There is a universe of thought beyond
What we think we know

Banish all preconceived notions
and into our wildest imaginations we go—

Poem Written by Karla Sanders @karlasandersart | Photos by Steven Tiller @steventiller