I wake early.
Mist is rising off the lake.
Rain taps lightly along my branches,
and down,
hitting mushroom and salal,
fiddlehead and fern,
as we gratefully drink
after long, dry summer's heat.
The earth is shaking.
I tremble.
The big-wheeled trucks move in.
Doors slam.
Men yell and laugh,
then head off,
each in his own direction.
There it is! The screaming roar
of the big saws,
the ominous rumbling
of the grapple-yarders,
the sudden crack! as my sisters fall,
roots pointing towards heaven,
beseeching
an end to the slaughter,
sap running like blood
down into the ground.
I dig my roots deep
into Mother Earth.
I will hold on tight
for as long as I can.
But, no! Here he comes,
a Two-Legged,
with his fearsome saw.
* First Nations often refer to the trees as Standing People, in their stories and legends.
Hannah has given us one of her wonderful challenges, for Transforming Fridays at Real Toads:
to write from a nonhuman point of view, as a denizen of the temperate forest. I chose the temperate rainforest, since it surrounds me:)
I love these geographic challenges, as we get to explore other realities.
So enlightening.
Do pop over and explore some of the links. Hannah's challenges always produce some interesting writing.
