Bottle the Trees

“Bottle the trees”
3/30/01
Words: Walter Koning

We’re using all our resources the feed our hungry machines
We’ve got gas bills and phone bills, electric and trash pick-up
We’ve created a program for administering our natural resources in
Individual pill bottles
Like a traveling medicine man we’ve solved our ailments with miracle formulas

Is it worth it? What’s the trade off?
Passionate environmental activists will say no way
We’ve got forests so clean, so pure, so old, home to so many
We’ve got oceans so thick, so big, so diverse, so polluted, exploited
We’ve got holes in the ground, so deep, so empty, no gold, but they tried

What the hey? So what? So there’s a hole in the ground, fill it back in
So the ocean is big, it’ll redevelop the parts we’ve filtered through
The fish will grow back.
So the forests are old and pure, we can cut and replant. It’ll all be like new.

Any antique car lover will remind us that a restored vehicle with
Replacement parts doesn’t hold nearly as much value as an
Original classic, kept in pristine condition
If we bottle up our trees, refine our fish, and chop down our oceans
We’ll have a wonderful place, without the same value