PoetrySociety, Power & Modern Life

A Tale of Two Trees

By 7 October 2026No Comments1 min read
Photographic collage contrasting a lonely British tree stump with border wall construction and desert deforestation.

A Tale of Two Trees

A short poem contrasting the public outrage over the Sycamore Gap tree with the destruction of ancient cottonwoods along the Arizona-Mexico border.


The Sycamore Gap tree
now stands as a stump,
150 years
felled by two lumps.

Public outrage.
They’re sent to jail.
Never again –
The Prince of Thieves.

The Prince of Thieves.
The Prince of Thieves.

Yet down in Arizona,
along the Mexican border,
activists guard cottonwood
groves with their lives.

Contractors,
guarded by an armed patrol,
knock down the grandmothers
for a concrete wall.
And the O’odham cried.

The O’odham cried.
The O’odham cried.


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