This is an ecological "House that Jack Built" story, and it is a grim one. The cover illustration is in color, but the interior illustrations are black and white, appropriately so, as you will see.
The chain goes seeds - trees - birds and beasts as the earth becomes filled with life:
These are the birds and beasts who feed
Beneath the shade and light of the trees,
That grew from the seeds
That lay in the earth that God made.
Note that the story shifts quickly to the longer lines with rhyme. It might have been nice to have these opening pages be in color to emphasize the contrast with what happens next, when humans come on the scene and start burning things, which alters how the chain is told:
These are the men
Who have no need for bird or beast,
And burn the trees,
That grew from the seeds
That lay in the earth that God made.
The fire begins a new chain which ends in an apocalyptic flood: smoke - air - sun - dust - rain... with a final vision of a lifeless earth:
No man, no beast, no tree, no sound
Disturb the waters that flooded and drowned
The dust that lay upon the ground,
That was dried by the sun the Earth spins round,
That warms the air like a ghost earthbound,
That's trapped by the smoke like a shroud which surrounds,
Made by the men
Who had no need for bird or beast,
And burned the trees,
That grew from the seeds
That lay in the earth that God made.
This is a grim story, but artfully told, and the art is beautiful, ending with the one illustration in color at the end, suggesting that, perhaps, the humans could make a different choice:
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