Sometimes I wish it were the past,

So I could experience true nature.

Before the redwoods were chopped.

Before the passenger pigeons were hunted to extinction.

I’d love to travel across the world,

Back when things were more alive,

Before colonization,

Or at least before the industrial revolution.

I want to see the pigeons, 

Which flew en masse.

I can't believe that we killed them all.

I wish people were more empathetic.

I think if I took everyone behind,

And brought them to before society,

Before the complexities of life,

I think we’d love nature more.

I wish we could all live

In a world where work wasn't real.

Where we danced in the evening to birdsongs

And frolicked through the fields.

I think that if nature was all we thought about,

Instead of work and taxes,

We’d value nature more,

And the pigeons wouldn't have died.