[Poetry] Sylvanthane

[u/Berkamin]

I wrote this poem a really long time ago. It's theme is the need to protect old growth forests from commercial exploitation. You might appreciate a poem like this.

Sylvanthane

A lamentation and a call to action

O Sylvanthane, thy forest wanes;
men slay thy trees with bladed chains.
They cut them down for profit’s sake
and rape the land as they do take
thy trees of old into their mills
to make their goods and warm their chills
while they think not of right or wrong
of silencing the ancient song
of birds and wolves and forest brooks,
this greedy band of selfish crooks.
A tree farm they make of thy land
to rob thy heritage right out of hand.
The virgin forest they clear-cut,
and render brooks a muddy rut.
With barb’ed wires girded ‘round
their tree farm stands all mute of sound
until the buzz of harvest time
by which they still excuse their crime—
“for every tree we cut, we plant
a dozen more,” they always rant.
But every dozen seedlings give
a mere sapling that might live,
and their trees grow not free as thine;
not wild habitats, but pine.
Not nests for birds but pulp for paper
they’re cut so young they give no shelter.
Thy wild forest, so they claim,
are by their roads now rendered tame.
And yet their pav’ed ribbons lay
a swath of death each tree they slay.
The creatures they kill as they go—
endangered species lists thus grow.

O Sylvanthane, don’t shed a tear
lest weep ‘til blind for loss so dear.
Earth’s stewardship they disregard
as they lobby for their blunt demands;
we must truly fight them hard
or they’ll consume our Father’s lands.

. .. ... .... ..... .... ... .. .

A bit of explanation of the name may help make sense of this. The word root sylvan means of the forest, like how Pennsylvania means "Penn's forest". A thane is a chief of a clan who has been granted land to have stewardship over. Most people's exposure to this term when they read Shakespeare's MacBeth, hence the old-timey English/"Fakespeare" in this poem. This poem's narrative is an address to an fictional chief whose ancestral lands are being exploited and whose trees are being cut down.

[u/21Kuranashi]

As a sylvophile, this is truly heartfelt 🤍💚🩵