He Was the Lorax

He was the Lorax, and he spoke for the trees.

But comrades, above all the gunfire in Yemen and Gaza, the spirit of that same Lorax still pushes for seeds and stems to sprout. He talks to us as if he is inferior to the common man, yet his rhetoric echoes that of ancient orators from Greece.

The sandals echo the same beat in Tel Aviv

As the Nike’s in Soho

As the bare feet in Madagascar

As the metal head in the mosh pit,

As the choir swaying to the Gospel,

As the girl salsa dancing in her backyard,

And as the performer at Lincoln Center.



The Lorax is echoed by the Colombian guerrillas held on U.S. drug charges, the Pagan temple found in an ancient Jewish temple, and the 10.5% unemployment rate in California.

Comrades, all he wants us to hear from his soapbox is how Obama’s climate adviser is open to geo-engineering to tackle global warming, how sports arenas are going green, and how the EPA awarded $197 Million in Recovery Act Funds to clean up underground storage tank Petroleum leaks, create jobs, and protect Land and Water.

I wish his visions come true because he speaks for the trees; he speaks for all of us.

So while Coldplay gets sued, our lives are interrupted by the shrill siren of an air raid signal, blasting through the speakers on our big-screen televisions, which shout ,

HEY! WAKE THE FUCK UP!

I only wish that the Lorax would not shy and shirk away from such a command.

I tell myself that it’ll be ok, because the Lorax can help in waking us gently, calmly, slowly, instead of jolting us from rest like a corpse reanimated.

I wish that everything wouldn’t emit an unexpected pollutant; that our furniture would stop morphing our homes into toxic caverns, and, hopefully someday comrades, I can eat a piece of fruit without worrying about transfats and how many partially hydrogenated oils I am receiving.

The Lorax just grins a toothless grin, and shows how a compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer from spreading throughout the body, according to a new study by scientists at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. The researchers are hopeful that the compound called CBD, which is found in cannabis sativa, could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.

So the Lorax still remains in the background, like a vigilante unseen, providing reprieve for the unguilty while being the overseer to your town.

The canopy is cast over me and you and us; with a layer of leaves filtering out the deadly UV rays of the sun because the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology concluded that those rays are addictive. 

The moonlight still flows through the brambly mass into each of our millions of pores, providing just the right amount of galactic nicotine for us to be able to trek through another day.

I wish that we didn’t rely on so many supplements and additives comrades. I wish that the Lorax could just be happy with what is in front of it, but we have trained it like Shamu to experience the noxious blue of a chlorine tank and to live with it.

I wish that when we are forced to make our own judgments, the Lorax would be hovering slightly overhead, aiding our confusion only when it is necessary.



All I see are sandals running through sand in Tel Aviv,

Nikes’ kicking up gravel in Soho,

Bare feet soaked in the rice patties of Madagascar,

Teenagers roaring in the mosh pit,

Choirs crying, “Hallelulyah!”

The little girl salsa dancing in her backyard,

And the performer at Lincoln Center.



Cause after all, comrades, the Lorax speaks for the trees,

And I speak for you and the Lorax and us.