
Flames fanned
screeching west winds
snarling monster
inks the sky in red
frightened Witness
to death of millions
hell looms
a stinking cloud
a scarlet specter
whole forests
charred beyond
recognition
fall.
Who will intervene?
Cease this suffering?
Assuage the pain?
Too many trees
are dying
choked by blazes
torturing the
Miracle Workers…
who turn
light, air, water,
into Breath
Gifting
Life to all

Placing my palms
on White Pine
the one that
told me
I belong
gives me courage,
the nudge
I need to believe…
Prayers flow
through my hands
I use words too
trusting palm to bark
I sense a pulse
Something is listening
spreading the message
Communication by air is
not distance dependent
three Chickadees gather
Oh pitch pine spruce
ponderosa lodgepole
you surrender
against your will
Terpènes scream
dire warnings…
Some pray for people
I pray for you
Spirit of Nature
gather each soul
Trees of Life
pine cedar birch
(too many to name)
Protect them
Perpetrators
fear loss
of human lives
but spend
not a moment
weeping
for you.
Smudged charcoal
soot and ash
smoldering skeletons
death on sticks
only you can
purify the poison
left behind
Instead we kill you
___________________
gray ash cools
silver rain
puddles
eons pass
________________
one day
Four million year old
Patterns
hidden behind blue sky
resurrect the holy
Seeds contain directions
rootlets burrow deep
Pattern and Seed convene
in my dreams
I meet ribbed Redwoods.
Postscript:
Witnessing for the burning of the forests in New Mexico and on the west coast feels intolerable until I drive down the road and witness the shredded uprooted forests, the bare brown mountains. Fires burn trees in the west and here in the north we slay them with the saw. One murders quickly, the other more slowly – either way, even as we lose them – death stalks humans too.
On this mother’ s day I give thanks for every tree that lives beginning with those on my land… stretching my heart into that forest that calls me to an arbutus* strewn woodland path to walk among her flowers…
Trailing arbutus (PICTURE ON TOP) is going extinct because we have destroyed most of its habitat. This plant like so many wildflowers has a complex and poorly understood relationship with the fungi and algae, the mycelial mat that stretches across and under the detritus healthy ( left alone) woodlands.
PS: WORDPRESS ROUTINELY CHANGES THE WAY I SUBMIT POETRY – THESE PECULIAR LINE BREAKS BELONG TO WORDPRESS NOT TO ME – I’M SICK OF TRYING TO RE-CONFIGURE THEM.