Rachel Nelson    BardLive Music and Productions   bardlive@gmail.com   651.353.3370

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Where have you gone, Julia Butterfly, Butterfly,

You with the wild heart that no one could tame?

"I've gone to the redwoods of far California

To sit with a tree who's been calling my name."

 

But why do you stay, Julia Butterfly, Butterfly,

Why do you stay with a year and a half gone?

It can't be publicity; you've had that a-plenty,

So why do you stay when you could have been gone?

 

Why do you stay, Julia Butterfly, Butterfly,

Why do you stay? Almost two years have gone.

So much of the grove has been cut down around you,

So why do you stay when you could have been gone?

 

"I stayed while the media all but ignored me,

Stayed here for days and for weeks without end.

I stayed while they came and they took down my story;

Now all their interest has come to an end.

 

"I stayed while they sent up their lumberjacks after me,

Watched, one by one, as they climbed to my nest

Each one beholden and charged to remove me,

Each, when we talked, would hike down like the rest.

 

"I stayed while they cut down the trees all around us,

Stayed while she wept tears of sap night and day,

I stayed and I cried with her, stayed and I mourned

     with her,

And now I find I just can't go away.

 

"So I stay here now 'cause this tree is my elder;

I stay here now 'cause this tree is my friend.

She's taught me so wisely and held me so tenderly,

Would that her teaching me never would end."

 

c 2002 Rachel Nelson

08/28/2012                         Copyright  BardLive Music     2012