THE GIVING TREE

source

First, you ate the fruit off my branches.
I happily gave you bark to make your baskets.
Then, you wanted more, 

hacking off limb after limb,
scattering birds’ nests
and squirrel families.

Starting at my top,
through the years,
you cut me lower and lower,
to feed your voracious fires.

Now, there remains a stump,
which I offer you generously:
Sit, take your rest.

I am sorry I no longer provide you with oxygen.
Breathing is something you forgot about
when you cut me and my sisters down.

For  Kim’s  prompt at Real Toads: tree mythology. I remembered the book called The Giving Tree that my kids used to read, where the tree offered itself to the human’s increasing demands. At the end, it offered rest upon its stump. I live in an old growth rainforest, with trees a thousand years old and older. They are not protected by more than lip service. In Port Renfrew, not far from here, an old growth forest is on the chopping block as we speak. This is madness on a heating up planet.