What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
these brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
take out trees
take out wildlife at a rate of a species every single day
take out people who've lived with this for 100,000 years --
inject a billion burgers worth of beef --
grain eaters -- methane dispensers --

through thinning ozone,
waves fall on wrinkled earth --
gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
speak of a drowning --
but this, this is something other.
busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
where wild things have to go
to disappear
forever

If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

(Toronto, April 7, 1988)