Mourn

I walk to the trees, for they cannot walk to me.

But in dreams they do.

They come to me calling,

whispering my name in the sighs of their branches,

laughing trickling down to me through their leaves,

for they are as happy to be known as I am.

No one knows me as a tree,

but they recognize their own.

Welcome to the humans who can be still, and silent.

Who can breathe more fully beside them.

Who can put technology and commercialism and societal pressures aside

Who can close their eyes and see the sun spots still

Who can crystallize blue skies clashing with brilliant green leaves

Grasping branches frozen in time

Reaching. And staying. Elegant ballet poses with the skies holding them.

Who remain silent and still speak.

As I stand beneath Her branches

Her roots spread in reflection below me

I am held close in the embrace of our Mother.

To Her it is but a blink of time to when She was honored.

In an exhale a human is gone,

Breathing back She remembers

When the two-leggeds recognized Her

As life-giver, we gathered Her fruits given freely,

We watched Her become home to many four-leggeds

The winged ones

We thanked Her for shade from the oppressive sun

Watched Her life energy change to flame in our cookfires

We honored Her.

She remembers.

And now.

Great swathes of land cleared with our huge smelly yellow machines.

Top soil scythed away.

Those years of leaves broken down into homes on the ground

Our smaller brothers and sisters flown away or buried under limestone piles

As they rape our Mother with their metal claws

And wheels

And cigarette butts.

Marking trees to save with yellow ribbon

And piling the rest to rot.

Burning them without ceremony, without honor.

Spit in the dirt, it’s all a commodity.

They will replant saplings where they ripped out ancients.

Little ones with no history with this land

Confused ones with no underground network

They strip Her of her bounty and shove themselves inside Her

Building straight lines

Covering Her folds and curves and little ones in concrete

Sinking Her feet into a bucket of cement and drowning Her in the river of greed.

And our Mother cries, She bleeds in the land

Yet they can’t see it.

In passing these grounds of rape and sodomy and devastation

I do not see progress.

It is sorrow, agony, a pain I can feel

Deeper than my heart, it slices sharp into my gut as I pass

Every time hot tears and anger,

I curse their machines, their bodies, their children,

For the grief of our Mother who can’t fight back in those moments.

For the grief of our little brothers and sisters who lost their homes.

For the lives lived on land ravaged so

There is no Soul left there for them,

She lays silent as they rape her.