In a valley of silver and emerald hue,Where the rivers ran clear and the morning was new,Lived a people of profit, of steel, and of stone,Who claimed that the earth was for masters alone.They felled the old oaks for the height of their walls,And silenced the songbirds in glass-covered halls.The air grew a shadow, the water turned grey,As the spirit of nature was driven away."We're winning!" they shouted, "The world is our prize!"While the dust of their progress blinded their eyes.But among them lived Elara, with a heart like a flame,Who remembered the world before it had a name.She walked to the edge of the blackened North Hill,Where the wind had gone lonely and the crickets were still.She found a small sapling, gasping for breath,In a wasteland of iron, on the doorstep of death.She didn't just watch; she didn't just sigh,She knelt in the dirt beneath the choking sky.With a cup of cold water and hands stained with soil,She gave it her mercy, she gave it her toil.A neighbor looked on, then a child, then a crowd,As the silence of shame grew heavy and loud.They saw in that sapling a mirror so clear—The death of the tree was the death of their year.One by one, they awakened; the trance was now broken,Through words of the heart that were finally spoken.They tore down the fences, they cleaned out the stream,And woke from the nightmare to follow the dream.For the earth isn't something we buy or we break,It's a gift in our keeping, for everyone's sake.The forest returned with a thunderous green,The brightest revival the world's ever seen.To be "aware" isn't just to see with your sight,It's to hold up a lantern and be part of the .
