Contrary to what you may have read, planting trees only is not a single — or the best — solution to the climate crisis. But, as they say in Brooklyn, it couldn’t hoit.

So what if you want to plant a tree but don’t know where to get one? Or you want to, but you don’t have land? You can join or donate to The Arbor Day Foundation. You can work to participate in the Tree Cities of the World initiative.

It isn’t everything, but it is something!

The funny song is coming up, but first you need to read this beautiful poem by George Pope Morris, which I totally ganked from Bartleby.

Woodman, Spare That Tree!

By George Pope Morris

WOODMAN, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I ’ll protect it now.
’T was my forefather’s hand
That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not.

That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o’er land and sea—
And wouldst thou hew it down?
Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak
Now towering to the skies!

When but an idle boy,
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here, too, my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand—
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand.

My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot;
While I ’ve a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.

And now, ladies and gentlemen (and others), I give you Phil Harris. If his voice sounds familiar, it’s because he was Baloo the Bear in Disney’s Jungle Book and Little John the … well … Bear in Disney’s Robin Hood. I listened to this song often as a child, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about me. (I don’t know who the beautiful person is, but the man in the top hat is Bert Williams, the first black star of Broadway, and writer of this song.)

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about a tree.

MA