[image from portaec.net - there are many more patches on these slopes since this photo was taken. More patches than trees, now. The big green center patch is gone. And the trucks keep hauling them away. Every hour, wherever you go in town, one passes a logging truck, stacked with trees, heading out. Beautiful B.C., hitting the road.]
The Beaufort Range
is dotted with clearcuts.
They are spreading
like a cancer
across the slipping slopes.
If you go near at night
when the moon is full,
you can hear the trees
moaning in distress.
They are grieving
for their slain sisters.
They are fearful for
their own tomorrows.
If you go near at night
when the moon is full,
you can hear
the wolves' keening howl
for their lost homeland.
Do they not practice sustainable logging by planting new trees behind them?
ReplyDeleteHeart breaking too isn't it Sherry. These trees are all which help give us the air we breathe, and we don't seem to care as long as there's another tree to chop down for progress.
ReplyDeleteI was sad on our TV here, they shot and killed a big bull moose because it was wandering on and off the highway and 'might' have caused an accident. We KEEP on taking their lands away and building houses or roads, their hunting/roaming grounds are shrinking by the day where the hell are they supposed to go? I truly think we don't deserve this planet and we haven't for a long time, ever since we became modern and 'civilised'
Sad, sad, picture Sherry.
Such an effective poem with it's moans and howls from the absences around. Please please publish this one!
ReplyDeleteSad indeed, but don't they replantt? Wondering the same thing that Kerry wondered.
ReplyDeleteNo, no sustainable logging, just ravaged hillsides with a ton of wasted logs left lying there. A man on Vancouver Island PROVED over his lifetime that sustainable logging is economically viable, but the big corporations don’t care – fast profit is what they’re after. There is a lot of talk about environmentally aware resource management but in truth, it aint happening. Huge tracts are sold off dirt cheap to these companies, and then no regulations apply to them. Govt is hand in glove with them. Horrifying.
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautiful place being stripped of all that it is and all that it brings. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteYou wrote about it so well, so mournfully.
I pray their brains kick in and they're helped to see the benefit in sustainable logging--to them and to all of us.
I misread Mel's comment as "I pray we kick their brains in" and I guess it's about as close to the truth as I can get.
ReplyDeleteI am and always will be a British Columbian, you know, and it hurts to think they're not replanting. I thought they used to, or was that just PR bullshit?
Sigh. A great write, Sherry, heartbreaking, but well done.
Luv, K
Sherry, so sad! That picture and your poem tell such a sad story. I do not understand why companies do not follow a sustainable practice--it only makes sense.
ReplyDelete