The Taking Tree
Both Ryan Gosling and I have a complicated relationship with Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, yet it remains what it is, and is perhaps rightly some sort of children’s classic…
So I wrote my own version to fit our modern times:
The Taking Tree by Nish “Shel” Silverstein
Once there was a Country, and it loved a Man.
The Country gave him its rallies, its flags, its chants.
He waved and took them. And the Country was happy.
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The Country gave him its courts, its laws, its agencies.
He bent them, broke them, stacked them. And the Country was tired,
but the Man said he was making it great (again).
The Country gave him its trust, its votes, its future.
Some of those votes came from far away, from foreign lands,
but the Man didn’t mind. And the Country felt smaller.
The Country gave him its secrets,
and the Man shared them with strangers who smiled like bears.
The Country gave him its daughters to protect,
and he took them to an island where the shadows were long.
At last, the Country had nothing left but its name,
and the Man put it on a hat and sold it back to the Country for twenty-nine ninety-five.
And the Country was empty.
And the Man was still asking for more.
The End.
