Expression Of Age

I prowl within the cold of needleleaf forest
The lost winds howl, rushing through the mist
I tread on the damp soil, peering past the thick bark
The trunks of towering pines loom overhead, massive and dark
Against the cloudy grey of the smoke-filled air
Their spines are sharp, they threaten, prickly and bare
Their spiny needles jut into the sky
Dense with evergreen trees of grand height
The hemlock, the firs, are dotted with moss and snow
Softly falling through salty autumn air onto the lichen growth
The rolling valleys that ascend into mountain peaks
Sparkle with the melted ice against the gray skies so bleak
The foothills with flowers of aspen in the dirty brown
Where the sable and mink run amok in the grassy grounds
The elk thunder on ice sheets of the high plateaus 
By the moose that graze on the foliage below
The foxes weave among the muskeg’s underbrush
While the wolverines are hidden away in the green lush
Away from the ringing shots that crack through the air
Where the outsiders have come to uproot our home bare.
Our migration routes buried under your industrial arms
The sounds of your drills a sudden alarm
For us to run from your soot black fumes
That blanket our sky, gray and black turret gloom
Our glacial peaks melting, the cold rushing
The muskegs submerged under icy flooding
And as the seasons stay brown, instead of the white
The animals are sore spots, coats stark, plain in sight
Matching the snowflakes, were their white coats and downs
But in the ever warm air, they stand out in the brown.
We move north to escape the heat
We run to a new habitat, to new homes we retreat
Your timber frames, your furniture of pine
Was stolen from me, wooden history of time
Trees older than the generations before
Lost to shifting snows, the fabric of our land torn
Sleet that held carbon of ages so old
Are now turbulent waters releasing air into the cold
An ever warming landscape where I once roamed
Now desolate, empty, devoid of most
My prey, my family alone, in the changing times
Our home stripped and unstable, leaving us behind
Where the pines and spruces once overgrew
They are now stolen from us to be carted to you.