JUNGLES JUNGLES … chlorophyll or asphalt? Does It make a difference? Teeming life floods both Their streams, our streets. Existence dies alike In squalor’s huts or monuments of glass And stone we civilized call home. Their beasts Indulge in killing just for turfs or food While we annihilate in grand crusades For glory, greed and so-called gods. Are those Liana vines that strangle trees in quests For light more sinister than vipers in Our midst who snake their way to power? Perhaps We find the silence most mysterious Because our lap-tops and computers must Compete with sonic booms and screeching horns. Are parrot cries offensive to our ears Because they’re weird or is it we’re enthralled By sounds of cell phones yakking on and on? Dare we deny those vast domains of green Still clean the toxins we pollute on earth. Hell’s torrid temperatures did not deter The Aztecs, Incas or the tropic Mayans from Erecting pyramids and massive tombs That rival Babylon and Egypt. And in Our egotistic view of man, are we Embarrassed to embrace a troubling truth? Our primal parents both came from the place … An ancient jungle garden we call EDEN. (*First in the "IN THE JUNGLE" Writers Forum Challenge)