Apology

I’ve used a lot of paper,
I know that’s pretty bad,
and when I think about it
it makes me kind of sad.

I’ve pondered on the problem,
I’ve thought about it hard
and that used up realms of paper
and stacks and stacks of card.

I’ve racked my brains and wondered
what could one person do?
I’ve paced and agonized,
as I’m sure you have too.

And then one frosty night
in the Marquis pub,
some of us were brainstorming
fueled by beer and grub

And so we hit upon it!
Yippee! Yippee! we cried,
we’ve got a good solution
and one we haven’t tried.

We could offset our footprint
and plant a tree to grow
and there and then we dubbed it
with the name you all now know.

We’re sorry for the paper used,
this is contrition that you see.
We hope the earth will accept
our heartfelt apolo-tree.

I wrote this for the planting of of a Quercus rubra (red oak) tree on the Main Campus at the University of Leicester. The tree was partially funded by SPELL (Society for Postgraduate English Literature and Language). The tree was dubbed the ‘apolo-tree’ as it was planted as an apology to the environment for all the paper used. More details are up on the School of English blog and the University of Leicester blog.