What to do with your slice of forest,
eighty acres narrow and bent like a lame leg.
Nothing special as land goes
but how you wrestle with its weight, my son.
Photograph by Kelly DuMar
Sell it or fell it, save it or pave it.
Log it, you decide. Not my choice,
let the record show. Call in the cutter,
the chipper, the hauler, the crane.
They fascinate you, these bright yellow
behemoths that chew and belch,
crude but graceful like sumo wrestlers,
even enlightened,
not clearing so much as thinning
in as much of a nod to Mother Earth
as logging equipment can muster.
Judicious logging. I applaud you, tepidly.
Some say trees communicate.
Do you believe that? What must
they be saying now, those that remain:
the twiggy, the bowed, the bent.
You can hear them crying
for their matriarchs—it’s hard to listen
their loss so gaping—but soon they’ll grow
fond of what they have more of
groundwater, breathing room,
the warmth of sun on bark
the musical chatter of songbirds and squirrels
after the silence of dense vegetation.
They won’t forget the mess you’ve made
of the only home they have—
the scars will take seasons to heal—
but you might get a chorus of nods
for the time you’ve begun to spend
with them, how you sit
at their feet and listen
as if they have something to say.
Smoky Quartz 