The purpose of this piece was to choose a problem that is going on now in my community and to protest this problem through a poem or a song. I chose topsoil removal and conflict minerals, because they are everything: we need topsoil to survive. I had a partner who chose conflict minerals. Since these problems are connected, we had to find a way to connect our poems. In this piece, I discovered that whenever we destroy a mountain, we pollute water, kill history of people, and scare away wilderness.
[CHORUS]
How does a man destroy a mountain?
To strip its life, its gold.
Tin, tungsten, tantalum and timber,
Our earth will be annihilated before I grow old.
Stop, stop, think twice before you destroy…
something vital to the world, a traveler’s joy.
Nothing belongs to you, possessions are not real.
It belongs to every single one of us –
and the animals, the plants the surreal…
listen to other voices as you listen to yourself
Shut down whatever you are doing and listen
Listen and know why…
Top soil is everything, it will tell our story when we die.
Find out what…
you can do about it
we can stop this, if we come together
we can do this
if we don’t think to our-selves:
spit it out, what’s on your mind;
your thoughts WILL change the world.
We’ve been wrecking and digging the Congo since 1985,
for cell phones and laptops,
for 5 million lives.
[CHORUS]
How does a man destroy a mountain?
To strip its life, its gold.
Tin, tungsten, tantalum and timber,
Our earth will be annihilated before I grow old.
The Congolese are being robbed of the ground that they stand on,
their land is being excavated fumigated inebriated and planned on.
The country lives in mass fear,
the rebels inflict mass murder.
The Appalachian have been robbed of all of their beauty,
they are now barren, desolate and picked over.
How do you feel today… on your iPhone, in your Range Rover?
[CHORUS]
How does a man destroy a mountain?
To strip its life, its gold.
Tin, tungsten, tantalum and timber,
Our earth will be annihilated before I grow old.
It is earth who allows us to walk upon her
– are we too barbaric to live in harmony and honor?
Are we too ignorant to realize that destruction of a mountain
is an act of murder?
Are we too greedy to give the earth the love she gives us?
[CHORUS]
How does a man destroy a mountain?
To strip its life, its gold.
Tin, tungsten, tantalum and timber,
Our earth will be annihilated before I grow old.