If You Haven’t, You Can’t Know

If you have not awakened to the sound of a creek burbling beside you

Where do you get the gall to vote against cleaning up our lakes and rivers

If you haven’t squeezed the throttle and heard the hoarse bellow and felt its raw power

You’ll never understand why OHVs are just the most fucking fun

If you never saw the earliest morning sun kiss a wild mountain basin

You can’t ever get a clue as to why wilderness might just be important

If you haven’t had one of your platoon buddies get his legs blown off right there beside you

You’ll not understand the great camaraderie even in a pointless and immoral modern war

If you never robbed a frightened white man at gunpoint when in need of a fix

You don’t understand what shaking with drug-enhanced psycho excitement is all about

If don’t know the rapture with which our savior fills our hearts

Your eyes are simply closed and your soul is truly dark and empty

If you have never gotten all shook up over the smell of meth abrewin’

You cant criticize the beutifool buzz that rots our teeth and makes our hair fall out

If you haven’t ever lost more than you could afford but just kept on playing anyways

You will never know how good it feels to win back even just a little bit

If you never stated proudly you were eager for the chance to clear your name

You cannot know why you then claim to have no comment regarding the allegations

If you never became quite still and simply regarded all of your wandering thoughts

You can derisively dismiss that phony bullshit about the sound of one hand clapping

If you haven’t nearly died and then realized you are looking at a peaceful sunset

It’s hard to know just how miraculous each and every second of our lives really is

If you should ever notice yourself dwelling on some phony sport or another

The door to your cure has begun to swing open in front of you at last

If you haven’t quite grasped the lure that drives men to unmuffle their vehicles

You really need to get right up here behind the wheel in this big bad baby

If you haven’t ever sweat too much and breathed too hard

You will not truly appreciate the gentle sun of a desert Winter

If you only ever eat vegetables, fruit and all that other so-called organic shit

You cannot understand the addictive joy of salt, sugar and hydrogenated oils

If you just read the bible and watch what’s new on TV

You’ll miss the wisdom of Mohammed and his buddy Isaac Newton

If you never spent too many lonely nights in the dark, all alone

You cannot fully appreciate the peace of slumbering together

If you’re always in an angry hurry because it’s still late once again

It really won’t be too easy to just sit there and listen to those stupid birds

If you’ve only weighed their arguments and critiqued other’s decisions

It’ll be hard for you to understand undertaking any real action of your own

If you never questioned the endless mowing, watering, fertilizing & pesticiding of your lawn

You probably never walked barefoot in some quiet forest meadow

If you really have thought through what you are saying right now

You won’t need to be told to just shut the fuck up, once again

If you haven’t hiked hard up to an alpine ridge on a clear september morning

You don’t deserve the gas it takes to drive your SUV over the pass, ever again

If you haven’t even saved a penny and lived large off of your maxed-out credit cards

Don’t bother to complain to me about those evil those Tax and Spenders

If you can’t even do the four operations of basic arithmetic in your head

Don’t you dare and try to question a scientist’s so-called fuzzy math

If you haven’t ever swam in a warm ocean during a real rain

You likely worry way too much about getting a little wet

If you can’t conceive of any society not based upon simple greedy profit motives

Sustainability surely sounds like another cockamemie liberal fairytale to you

If you never were in awe of the interwoven cycles of the web of this earth

You’ll find it easier to believe that we alone are possessed of a soul

If you still believe a god who awaits you created all of this and left behind his word

You need never even look into the void yet for even the briefest single moment

If you hadn’t seen those kids grow up and loved them so much through thick and thin

You cannot understand their exceptional nature or the uniqueness of their gifts

If you felt you always needed to stop in order to smell the roses

You were lucky, because you never noticed you really were not going anywhere...at all