Stonewall

["When I moved out to Vancouver (Canada!) in 1987, I took a walk down to a nearby river. it looked calm and peaceful, yet alive. a closer look (and smell) changed my peaceful mood into a feeling of disgust and disappointment: the water was full of raw sewage and chemicals, which I later found were spewing out from a plant upstream, as well as a garbage dump located, ever so brilliantly, fifty feet from the shoreline. this was the first time I've ever really thought of about the permanent environmental damage being done and, although I'm not about to hold up protest slogans and join Greenpeace, 'stonewall' is my way of bringing the subject up for thought."]

Stonewall, go to bat
Unless you want to live like that
Stonewall, can't we see
We're our own worst enemy

A land said to have all, wealth in land, in man
Qualities soon to exhaust as man's greed poisons the land
Streams, once fresh, were centres of life for so many a creature
Beauty without defence, polluted, never to replenish

Collage, blue and green, seen as golden industrial sites
Smudge as toxic pollutants destroy her remaining rights
The power of corporations, spewing chemicals into the air
Fines are imposed to discourage, but what's a dime to a millionaire

It's time to listen, and see the signs
It's time to listen and hear her cries

The one that gave us life is being burnt to the raw
Reaping unprotected riches, human nature's self-destruction flaw
The power of corporations, spewing chemicals into the air
Fines are imposed to discourage, but what's a dime to a millionaire