A poem for Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, and while I brush the bark stains off my shirt from all that tree-hugging I have been delighting in, I leave you a brief poem.

Stopping by Mark Twain National Forest in Light of the Rural Schools Act
(Apologies to Robert Frost)

Whose woods these are I think I know,
Bush wants to sell them for the sake of Oregon, though.
He says he wants to build some schools
To make up for clear-cutting they did long ago.

But I live in the Midwest, once verdant, lush
Now patchwork forests choked in underbrush
Our woods belch pulp for paper mills
And our own schools are poor, too, Mr. Bush.

“These lands are inaccessible,” you sneer
Which is doubtless why they are still here
Perhaps a tax on oil profits would work better
We’d build a million schools a year!

But Exxon would then pitch a fit,
And you have cronies like Libby to help acquit,
And election-year chicanery to commit,
And election-year chicanery to commit.