Save the Trees

By Bertha A. Kleinman

Come out in the royal esplanade,
Away from the halls of ease,
And join in the Infinite Crusade,
Come out and save the trees!

Look up from your vague philosophies –
The cults you immortalize,
And, amid God’s dynasty of trees,
Come out and evangelize.

Where the timbered billows, verse on verse,
Unfold like a cantoed thing,
And in ritual of the Universe,
The Stars of the Morning sing!

Where the forests holy with parables
Transcend all priestly sect,
And the ozone brewed into syllables
Entones His scriptural text;

Away from the cant of church and state,
And the tenet of lordly rule –
Come out and join god’s consulate,
And stand in his vestibule.

Look up from your codex cynical,
From your party policies,
And join your hand to the miracle –
Come out and save the trees.

Come out on the stark, denuded rim,
And pledge to the centuries;
Lift up your voice in the battle-hymn,
Come out and save the trees!

(1927)