in support of the efforts to protect Old Growth forests in Fairy Creek, and everywhere.

For centuries they have stood: watchtowers 
of bark and branch, roots that record and 
remember.

And now, again, we cut — the birds raise 
the alarm, as we raze their homes to the ground.
Not logging — 
What is the word for the annihilation 
of worlds?

We would level the mountains themselves if we could,
to make houses of stone, or fuel furnaces with rock.

Each cedar is a cosmos, fractal 
dimensions of life. They are 
our parents: feeding  sheltering  teaching 
absorbing our carbon sighs, clear cutting the air 
so we can breathe.

Now we burn their cool shade for heat,
build our homes from the corpses,
erase their eternal memory — 
so that we might write our fleeting poems.

The trees have stood so long for us — 
Now we must stand up strong for them.