The Forest

a poem about forest ecology

Source: Google Earth

The above image looks down on “forested” land not that far from where I live in the northwest corner of Washington State in the US. It is an example of what is called “working forest,” and you can clearly see the work being done to it, but none of it is forest. A forest is a community naturally grown over time. What we see above has likely all been converted to timber planation, monocrops of selected species, like Douglas Fir, which grow fast and yield the greatest monetary return, cut on 40-60 year cycles. In the darker patches, there may be scraps of forest not yet replanted, but without the public finding those places and fighting to save them, it’s just a matter of time.

Fortunately, just such a movement exists in these parts. Using satellite imagery, people around here are identifying the last remaining, unprotected shreds of true forest and fighting for them. It’s one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever been a part of. Occasionally I’m asked to read a poem or two at an event. This poem, The Forest, speaks to the yawning gap between true forest and industrial plantation.

The Forest

Carbon? 
     I know how it tastes. 
It is my bread, my breath, my body.
Wander under my branches 
     and you will hear carbon sing.

Climate?
     I grow it.
I turn the wheels made of water
and dream clouds into rain.
Coolness, moisture and calm
are beams of a building
I make out of time.

Time, Earth-time, life-into-death time
is the only time I know.
My firs must grow old
for the branches to break off
and call out the hungers
the chewers and crawlers 
making banquet for flickers
drilling nests for bluebirds
hollowing out homes for owls.

When you stand in me 
that hallowed feeling you get
that is from the hollows.

My cedars need time too, long, long time
for the chambers to form
for the quiet inner disintegration
to hollow heartwood to den-home
becoming womb for bear.

And when they finally fall
time is freshened yet again
as wood turns to sponge
soaking up rain, sprouting hemlock
growing amphibians.

Plantation sameness now
marches over the hills
young trees shoulder to shoulder
bred and born for labor
     without womb, without elders.

There I can’t live, and the fires
the withering creeks
are only the most obvious 
symptoms of my absence.

I can save your climate
make it mine again.
But you will have to let me.

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