The Ballad of Old Narra Tree

Down the river by the valley,

Gruesome death seized old narra tree;
By the flood, 'twas swept ragingly,
Left at the mercy of the sea.


Hit and tossed by the angry waves,
It badly broke all of its limbs;
In the heart of the ocean's realms,
It was buried with all its dreams.


Old narra's woeful destiny,
Was man's responsibility.
He trampled very heedlessly,
Each big and little living tree.


He ruthlessly burned the forests,
And cleared the hills and the mountains;
All these, he did until the rains,
Came swiftly rushing down the plains.


Roaring wildly, the waters ran,
Towards the farms of the lowland;
Covering every blade and strand,
With silt and mud from the highland.


Even the slumbering bamboo,
By the current, was carried too;
Its creaking screams seemed to echo:
"Stupid man, I blame none but you!"


Then when came the season of heat,
The red sun glared in rays the seethe;
Scorching poor Mother Earth that writhe,
As she nurses her burns with spite.

She suffered and endured with gripe,
The grave disaster and the plight;
Brought about to the utmost height,
By ignorance and dim foresight.

Rain sulked too, for it couldn't find,
Friend narra in the vale enshrined;
Whom it used to call in the bend,
On its way to the rainbow's end.

And so, drought spelled over the range,
Fields died, from dehydrated veins;
Through man's blunder old narra was gone,
And spared from Heaven's wrath was none.










by: Maria Luisa Tejero Torrento