Photo by H. W. Bryce
This is the top of the remaining cedar less than twenty feet
from my East window. Her skirt is becoming tattered. Yet, she
is still so majestic. They took away her mate last year.
Soon to be replaced by a six-storey wall! – ?
THE LAST CEDAR
H. W. Bryce
Here stands the last cedar in this park.
It stands as a sentinel “on guard for thee.”
Standing with her, one lonesome crow,
That universal bird around the world.
Here, not twenty feet from my window,
She stands, knowing that her fate is nigh,
For the signs are up, the bylaws are passed,
The diggers and the builders are soon due,
Replacing this noble tree, and unhousing
Lonesome crow and his family’s murder
Will be a six-storey apartment/business
Tower, blocking all the light and nature,
From my Eastern window
My next view a view of the world’s
Forests, under attack by Man’s greed
And need and unheeding…
Bringing on unimaginable amounts of new
Traffic, noise, revving motors, speeding
Vans and souped-up cars, and glutting up
Our short span of parking space…
And here stand I, mourning this loss
And feeling much like the cedar, old
And used up, limbs thinned out…Still,
My heart beats, my life longs. On!
— —
And for the world meeting in Scotland,
What say they? Do or die, literally. If
Die, there shall be many a very hot feet…
I am Cedar. My last supper will be
Rain…
