[Newspoetry] Re: Gillespie: Poem for Urbana City Council Meeting 11 March 2002

[Donald L Emerick]

{(Advisory Note on Infringements
of surefire patented processes:
Ignoring all outstanding critics,
as to what might be a poem,
is my copyrighted trademark.
You have been once warned --
Legal action shall follow when
you persist in flouting my law.
"What action?" you may ask.
Just this 'converse' reaction,
Which was invited, perhaps,
By topic, in any/every event.)}

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GREAT POWERS OF LAW CORRUPT
(--- Acton, on a distant power delta)

"In those bitter days of yore ways,
The Word came to better prophet:
'Son of Man, shall 'dead' bones live?'"
Said he, "When you will it so, Lord,
Then shall it be as you then decree."
(-- Ezekiel, on animate principles?)

When shall some lovely Tree die?
"No Tree has cognized legal rights"
so said the Supreme Court once,
As a dissent famously remarked:
"Why must we be anthrocentroids?
We indignify rights of Rocks and Trees,
Who would find angelic guardians,
If we did not condemn them to be
Slaves as our objective property."

Without rights, a Tree may speak,
But it shall not be heard in Court.
It shall not receive consideration.
It shall not be protected from evil,
Which is most often lust for gold,
lust for sex, lust for god, lustful:
As life takes more than it makes.

Trees once lived together, in peace,
Before the coming of lustful euroman,
Who saw Peace amid Trees impudent,
Impeding his own holy profit's progress.
Pyramid tricks of euro-wealth take more
Than they ever give back to stoic Nature.

A Forest that thrived, lived million days,
Dies in a day's lusty rampaged craze,
When exploiting eco-terrorists run wild,
Using today's commodity market price
By yellow-star tags on all that may be
Degrading intrinsic into instant valuing.

All the beings are equal, so all believe,
But a bigger trick denies being to some
To give more to the more favored ones,
The children of a promised grand-land.
The native child is orphaned, robbed,
Ancestral history discredited as pagan,
Of no interest to the displacing man.
Under the older laws of ancient lands,
Trees and Rocks have and hold rights,
But you find this truth out by thinking
Of what it is that they might be saying
By starting to listen to their speech
And then learning what it is they say.

But, every translation of mine is alien.
I speak as no native Rock or a Tree.
I speak as a Friend of wood or stone,
And end, asking to atone for all that.

Thanks for listening,
Donald L Emerick