"What is nature", the little child cried,
"I'll tell you a story," the mother replied,
Way back in the day when the world was clean,
When the air was fresh and the grass was green,
We would wake in the morn to a bird's wondrous tune,
Fall asleep at night to the call of a loon.
In the distance the chorus of frogs in the pond,
The howl of a coyote in hills beyond.
And when I was small, I would lie on the ground,
Where buttercups, daisies and clover abound,
Little red and black ladybugs gently would land
On my arm, and a butterfly perch on my hand.
The sky, oh the sky, brightest blue ever seen,
And the trees, the most vivid and greenest of green,
A soft, fragrant breeze tantalizing my nose,
The smell of the earth, the smell of a rose.
"Is that a fairytale," little child said,
"A make believe story in books we've read?
It's nothing I've ever seen out there,
In the cold and gray, in the brown and bare.
It doesn't smell good, it doesn't look pretty,
It's scary and noisy, it's just one big city."
"Oh honey," the mother sighed, "What can I say,
I'd hoped you too, would see it one day."