Don't Cut the Trees, Don't 2: Trees - Nature's Gift to Man

Don't Cut the Trees, Don't 2

Trees - Nature's Gift to Man

Paintings by Dr Abe V Rotor

Poem by Anna Christina Rotor-Sta. Maria

  

"Don't cut the trees, don't!

Make a stairway across;

Save he clouds that fill the font,

      We have had enough, the Cross." 

Don't Cut the Trees, Don't 2 in acrylic (36"x48") 2021 by AVRotor. Painting on display

at Living with Nature (San Vicente, Botanical Garden), San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Trees - Nature's Gift to Man*

We grow up with trees.

We want them to grow big;

we want them to be around us; 

to give us shade in which we play;

to give us strong trunk and branches

on which we climb and swing and laugh;

to give us fruits which make us full,

healthy and strong;

medicine to make us well; 

wood tat keeps our body warm,

cooks our food;

leaves to keep our air clean

and to whisper and sing 

and dance with the breeze;

and above all,

to give us aesthetic beauty

through which we feel

how lucky we are alive.

How irrational would it be to kill a tree,

even if we reason out that we need its wood,

its bark, its roots, its flowers and fruits and seeds,

to keep us alive!

It is paradox 

that for us to survive and progress,

we kill the host of life - 

life of birds that build their nest on its branches,

passersby who find respite

from the beating sun,

a myriad of small life forms

from insects to lizards

that find a home

and harbor on its roots and crown.

What a paradox

if we kill the tree that gives us oxygen

that brings down the cloud as rain,

that keeps the environment cool, clean and green

to kill a friend,

a companion and a guardian,

the link of our earth and sun,

God and His Son. ~  

* From a speech of Anna Christina Rotor-Sta. Maria,

then 16 years old at School of Saint Anthony QC, 1999

Drynaria*, trees would be bare without you;

You hang on their trunk and lanky limbs, too;

Deep in your bosom some little ponds lie,

Oasis to fish, frog and dragonfly.

*Aerial fern 

It is paradox 

that for us to survive and progress,

we kill the host of life - 

life of birds that build their nest on its branches,

passersby who find respite

from the beating sun,

a myriad of small life forms

from insects to lizards

that find a home

and harbor on its roots and crown. 

- Anna ~