RACHEL CARSON

RACHEL CARSON

SPACESHIP EARTH

"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent upon its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

ADLAI STEVENSON, 1964

Saturday, April 23, 2016

"THE RETURN OF THE LORAX" TECHNO-RAP SONG BY JEFF PHILLIPS (1995)




LISTEN/DOWN-LOAD HERE:

https://soundcloud.com/the-brink-jeff-phillips/11-evox-the-return-of-the

THE RETURN OF THE LORAX

I was walking in the forest just the other day
Up on Sis Naajini* where the sasquatch play,
Where the sky people dwell and the saucers command,
When I heard a voice saying, "Yo! Hey there, man…

If you have just a moment I’d like to relate
An urgent message on the current state
Of the health of the Earth and her passengers/crew,
That’s all living beings, and especially you."

Now I stood quite amazed at what I’d just heard,
From the tone of his voice my mind inferred
That the reference frame of this fellow here
Was quite perpendicular but somehow clear.

"Excuse me, sir, homo sapiens friend,
Of truffula trees we’ve witnessed the end,
Due to lack of kindness and mammalian greed,
You’ve no global shortage of disposable thneeds!"

"You’re right!" I exclaimed, with my thumb in the air.
"I’ve hitch-hiked forever but still I’m not there.
This beautiful Earth blue and green do I love,
As ancestor spaceships return from above."

"You know of the craft coming soon, I can see.
Prepare to experience eternity.
The angels of revelation drawing near
To battle the forces of killing and fear.

The ships of sky-people grandfathers alight
On the edge of the present in the dark of night;
Human kind, kin and cousin, far and wide shall you view
Some broad misconceptions which you hold to be true.

The forces of evil in your minds reside,
The absence of love, no compassion inside
For your fellow crew beings here on the Earth.
You’re totally clueless concerning her worth.

Your planet’s the nexus of life water-based
Whose genesis here my grandfathers retraced
From original blue-prints in their dream-time continuum
Which resembles a hyper-space infundibulum.

Remember the reason you’re here, I insist.
If not, the Earth may become rather pissed.
With motherly firmness she would find a way
To teach all her naked apes running astray."

Reeling in wonder and half-mesmerized
I came to my senses and soon realized
That I knew of this being not a thing, not a name,
Not the nature of his mysterious game.

"Pardon me, sir, I must know who you are.
What you do, where you’re from, now near or how far."
"I dwell in this forest with the sky folk, like you,
Here on Sis Naajini we’re from Thalion**, too.

I’m perfectly real, do you need more facts?
I guess you should know that I am the Lorax.
I speak for the trees of all times and spaces,
For all living beings, all phyla, all races,

Each myriad _expression of creation’s desire,
From the cellular nucleus to the hot stellar fire,
From Rigelian mantis to ‘shroom fungus spore,
To the trilobites deep on Earth’s ocean floor.

Listen up, homo sapiens, won’t you please get a clue?
You’re spoiling the Earth for us, and for you…
Your bed you have wet, in your britches you’ve shat,
You’re killing your own! Yo! What’s up with that?

Your infotoxin drives your world machine
Through the total summation of your daily routine;
Your unconscious jihad against nature is real.
Won’t you WAKE THE FUCK UP! Come alive and feel

Your connection with life: it’s deep in your heart.
We’ve all the same mother, the Earth, won’t you start
To use the best knowledge you already possess
For more than the sucking of infinite cess…

Don’t be a soldier in World War Three…
Park your car and plant a tree.
Use the tube to educate,
Leave the plants to vegetate."

With that he was gone, vanished into thin air,
And I in amazement stood standing right there.
I had just been informed with astute erudition
By the voice of the Lorax on the human condition.

So listen, now, friends, unless I’m insane
We must each from harming the Earth refrain.
Our lives are a precious gift, yes, it’s true,
On Spaceship Earth we’re ALL passengers/crew!

* * * * * * *

*Sis Naajini, "home of the sky people", one of four sacred mountains of the Navajo;

aka Blanca Peak, presides over the San Luis valley of south-central Colorado.

**Thalion, imaginary planet in the Arcturan Star System, named after Thalia,

the muse of comedy in Greek mythology.

JEFF PHILLIPS © 1995

BOULDER COLORADO

EARTH

DEDICATED TO THEODORE GEISEL, aka DR. SEUSS