LETTER TO A YOUNG TREE DEFENDER

 

I was you, once, in the Summer of '93,
tom-toms thrumming softly around the campfire
in the pre-dawn darkness.
We gathered on the road before the big rigs
rolled in, with their blinding lights,
intimidating, loggers' angry eyes
staring down at us, as we stood fast

- no paseron! -

The man read the injunction;
some of us moved to the side;
some sat in place, arms linked,
determined. Police hauled them off
by their arms and legs, as we cried,
applauded, called out our solidarity,
hearts bursting with passion,
standing for the trees, for the future,
for Mother Earth, her old growth disappearing
into capitalism's voracious maw:

cut 'em fast, while we still can -
eliminating their jobs along with
the old growth, raw logs
shipped out of country:
no sustainability, no value added industry.

We are apparently a suicidal species
and we do not learn.

We fought all summer.
900 arrests, some incarcerations,
but what worked was blocking that road
long enough that they gave up
and went somewhere else.
Clayoquot Sound saved (for then,
though we are losing forests
to over-development now in the same town
that fought so hard to save them.)

It is thirty years later. You gather
in the pre-dawn light at Fairy Creek,
some of the last of the old-growth
left on the Island.

Just a few years left of logging jobs,
yet they plan to cut it all.

No jobs on a dead planet.
Worth More Standing,
as the climate heats and spins
into crisis.
cut 'em fast while we still can.

I will tell you what I remember:
the intimidation, the fear, 
government in the pockets of corporations,
determined, against the will of the people
to keep the cash flow running
as the big old ancient ones vanish
from the earth forever
while the planet turns and burns.

It appears we are a suicidal species
and we don't learn.

I remember mostly my heart bursting,
during the most passionate hours and days
and weeks of my life,
standing for the trees, the trees!

Young defenders, I see you gather
on the road, and I remember. Hope stirs
as one more generation steps up
to speak truth to power,
to say "this is madness, disappearing
the lungs of the planet."

Stand strong. The trees thank you.
They know you are there. They feel the fear
of the chainsaws and grappleyarders parked
so ominously close. They quiver down to their roots.
But when they hear you gentle folk
singing and talking around the fire,
they hope, as I do, that you can save them,
the beautiful tree beings of Fairy Creek.
They will take you on a journey
through the most fulfilling hours
of your life.

Stand strong!

Fairy Creek is in the south-west area of Vancouver Island, near Port Renfrew. On the Island, there is very little old growth left. Fairy Creek has one of the last intact watersheds. So far, as the tree defenders stand on the road each morning, the trucks have turned around and left. The government is weirdly silent - plotting their tactics. Soon the blockade will be on the only road going in. We can expect aggression, then, and likely court injunctions and arrests will begin. I hope more and more people come, as they did in '93 - first a handful came, back then,  then a trickle, then hundreds, then thousands. Famous people came, Bobby Kennedy Jr., Starhawk, and others. Midnight Oil gave a concert in the trees. 900 were arrested and charged, some incarcerated. It is unbelievable it is thirty years later and people are still fighting to save old growth, the last of it, precious, necessary, vanishing, shipped off to be turned into toilet paper.

Really, I can hardly believe the wilful ignorance involved. One young warrior said, "Cutting these trees is a crime against humanity." It is. But the greater crime is against Mother Earth herself.