Greenhouse Effect

They, Hunched in the green glow Simulating our fate with binary strings Etched on memory of silicon, They say it would take sycamores In forests the size of Australia To re-ingest the spewing wastes From coal and cars and rain-forest pyres. Or eucalyptus enough to clothe Zaire. (The species chosen for the calculations.)

Were I to choose ... My heart would have:

Larches in spring, arch-tipped and fireworking; Beeches unfurling, soft and sea green; Candle-decked chestnuts with conkers cascading; Swamp-wading cypresses, bald and knee-poking.

Arm-stretching oaks for all great grandchildren; Orange flamed maples against stormy skies; Birches in sphagnum bogs fragrant with myrtle; And a blanketing somberness of northern firs.

Pinyons, loblollies, bristlecones and limbers, Miros and totaras, locusts and planes, Rimus and kauris, lilacs and alders, Hemlocks and cottonwoods, aspen and yews.

Australia? Not enough space. Let's plant the world.

I'm ready to dig.