Music and lyrics: M.L. Hammond

Way back I used to write songs about men disappearing; now I write songs about Nature disappearing. I currently live on the Oak Ridges Moraine, which runs across southern Ontario for about 160 kilometres. No surprise: it’s under pressure from urban development. The species in the song are just a few of the hundreds found there that are rare, at risk, or endangered.

Fifteen thousand years ago
ice and glaciers, ice and glaciers
time rolls on and ice starts melting
water flowing, water flowing
silt and sand and clay and gravel
kettle lakes and river valleys
marsh and fen and forestland
and time rolls on

Stones and shells for tools and beads
bow and arrow, woven willow
time rolls on and trails are blazed
land surveyed and roads are laid
axe and saw to fell the trees
for farms and churches, general stores
villages grow into towns
and time rolls on

Two hundred twenty-five acres for sale
zoned industrial
two hundred twenty-five acres for sale
zoned industrial

Purple cress and holly fern
pasture rose and prickly rose
silky dogwood, little bluestem
foxtail sedge and silvery sedge
white oak, black oak, spruce and hemlock
burning bush and trembling aspen
dragon’s mouth and panic grass
and time rolls on

Chorus

Stars still shining above
wires humming below
crumbling asphalt and grey cement
showing through the melting snow
and in the shrinking spaces left between
the spring shoots grow
electric green

Hooded warbler, loon and raven
Cooper’s hawk and broad-winged hawk
snowshoe hare and river otter
water shrew and smoky shrew
blue-spotted salamander,
Blanding’s turtle, ribbon snake
sleepy duskywing butterfly
and time rolls on

Chorus

And in the shrinking spaces left between
the spring shoots grow
electric green