Dr Birute

The worlds true primate angel
A scholar of the wild
Clearly her enlightenment
Begun as a child
Her grasp and her awareness
A perception of the great
Acquaintanceship with the red apes
And there can be no debate

This women is remarkable
Camp Leakey is the place
In Indonesian Borneo
Which she has made her base
And has amassed a knowledge
In reality
She is closer to orangutans
Than anyone could be

Its the love and care
And thought and struggle
She was prepared to make
In what was a most inhospitable place
She had thrust her stake
Firmly on the forest floor
And she was going to stay
And really do the business
Profoundly day by day

She set up her foundation
It was the OFI
And dedicated people came
For really to apply
One’s life to such a venture
In the wake of all we know
The great Palm oil explosion
And how quietly she did grow

In stature as her authentic
Being was hallmarked to attain
She launched berself into the fight
Which has always been to gain
Help and care for the great red apes
For above all else they were
Who she set out to understand
Which some of us concur

A remarkable farsightedness
With ample amounts of sagacity
A shrewdness and a power of thought
And a great capacity
To struggle through adversity
And to prove to herself she
Could by observation
And true constancy

Almost become an Orangutan
A forest person who
Looked and acted and was dedicated
To do what she must do
Realise the quandry
The great Red Apes were in
And, do something sbout that
Help them help them win

In a world of utter madness
Disrespectful to the core
Who would rather log out nature
And slash and burn for sure
With not a sage among them
How quick they could destroy
But create they were unconscious
But Dr Birute had joy

In her heart and she had the foresight
She was mindful and she knew
Lucidly she gambled that souls minds
Could win through
There were many disappointments
Hopelessness and pain
But she forsaw the prophesy
Despite all of the rain

She had the inventiveness
The ingenuity
The insight the resourcefulness
And all that imagery
She was at Camp Leakey
Her angels were around
The rhapsody of being
The place that she had found

Unreal sometimes
Chimerical
Fanciful some say
But when a heart can empathize
Can idealize a way
And can conjur up a meaning
A devotion to a cause
Who is eloquent and forthright
Then the pitch must never pause

She became a revelation
An angel in the wild
A loner its a lonely place
And anything but mild
Vast extremes to conquer
But well within her soul
Affirming every negative
And remaining in control

Being an apprentice a scholar
And a child
Within the space before her
So ungraciously wild
She stepped into the breach
And she made it through her war
With veracity and ardour
For what she came here for

And she is still there
And their world is a better place because of her