Hugging Trees

was not a joke, nor was it lies
told by closed mind urbanites,
to diminish the impact
of the nascent hippie movements
that was mushrooming
underneath parents feet
in the small towns across England.

The original tree huggers,
were women in Northern India
who lived on the margins;
they were poor and depended
on the trees for how they lived.

They did not hug the trees
for the sake of it, but to save
themselves from an even greater
marginalisation and poverty,
as the male idea of the future
threatened not just them
and their dependents
and what they depended on.

They were tough women
who like most tough women
in a male centred world
whose strength and determination
was always being underestimated.