Sage Francis: Tree Of Knowledge

I'm a construct of your world, deep-rooted, polluted and tortured
Abused and altered, I just caught you eves dropping
Adam's rising to pluck the fruit from off the branch
reaching out to touch your inner-drives
Cut me open and count the rings inside to see how long I've been alive
Containing forms of records about the types of storms I've weathered
Leave a stump for kids to carve initials as long as I'm remembered
But lessons go forgotten plus you don't believe a thing
Listening to the whispering of my leaves in the wind
When the breezes begin you're just concerned with flying kites
Till I tangle up your child's play and get you climbing heights
Still reluctant to hear me out admiring the sites
You have no idea what it was like being nailed to Christ
You're swinging from the twigs and limbs that used to hang your siblings
Have respect you selfish self-centered sack of man-made buildings
I was the original pinnacle but now I'm nothing to you but kindling
Tickling my inhibitions of naturally attracting children
Who have a funny idea of what forever is
I witnessed the first time lips kissed with stripped innocence
Not too long after that was I supplying shade
For a man caressing silverbacks trying to get laid
Monkeying around and now they're all dying of A. I. D. S
Government guerilla tactics? That's a farce, I bring the plagues
Cancer? That's just icing on the cake, I nurse and feed ya
Cause you drained me of my sap with taps of perverse procedure
I hold your family background right down to the first amoeba
Watched you grow from just crustacean to a land mammal, it hurts to leave ya
But I've had enough, and it'll be very relieving
Just who do you think supplies the air you're breathing?
Humongous oxygen tanks? As if it's all free
Constantly wondering where your dogs are at?
They're barking up the wrong tree
Wanting proof of identification but I existed before fingerprints
Cognitive dissonance... I hear chainsaws in the distance
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it
Does it make a sound? I'll go down quietly but you're feel it
Still these sick like thoughts keep eating away at my inside
Till I'm nothing but hollowed out hide..
The dead tree's still standing, here comes the hunting-ax of lumberjacks
So I attract like lightning when the thunder cracks, I'm under attack
So I may finally... stop... stumble... relax...