
You must remember
How beautiful
How precious
Once the world was

If it all goes rotten
It still must not be forgotten
How beautiful and green
How precious and clean
Once the world was

Write it down
Photograph it
Paint it
Tell your children
And your children’s children
Sing a song
A catchy tune
Memorize and sing it often
All may go and all too soon

But you
You must recall the sky of blue
The clean and crystal air
You must dare
Build it into every brick
Remind your cats and dogs
Sing it with the birds
Buzz it with the bees

You must remember
How precious
How beautiful
Once the world was

Once the world was
Teeming with the Great Tree of Life
Reaching its long branches into
Rivers, Lakes, and Oceans
Even into caves and deserts
Even into arctic snow
And even though
I know the Tree is greatly damaged
In the daze of neon
In the days of useless plastic
And truth denied, elastic

Even so, you must teach the others
Nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers
How once the world was
Precious and beautiful

You must be sure to remember
And to sing of it
Often and in many ways
Through the din of days
Paint it always
Pictures in the sky of thought
Music in the bread of naught

Some day
Long after you and I
And all you know are dead and unburied
Tree by leaf and leaf by rose
Someone needs to know
How beautiful
How precious
How utterly alive
Once the world was

In all the precious places
And in all the secret spaces
Tell at least two
What you knew
How beautiful
How precious
Once the world was

The Walkabout Diaries: Sunsets
The Walkabout Diaries: The Life of the Party
The Walkabout Diaries: Life will find a way
The Walkabout Diaries: Friends
The Walkabout Diaries: Mind Walk