our inattention, and the results

the burner turned too high

I feel for the forest on this mountain:

the burner beneath the atmosphere

is turned up too high, our fault,

and the predictable patterns we have known

wrench away into devastating drought and rains,

into winds that roar too fast for the trees,

last fall these woods were drier

than at any time in my 69 years of memory,

some kids arsoned a small fire

Courtesy Google Images

and hurricane level winds spread it,

blowtorched it across valleys and ridges,

a red whirlwind of destruction

Courtesy Google Images

scouring the ground of leaves and twigs

and down trunks that masked earth and rock beneath,

the wind knocking down tree after tree older than me,

since the Great Fire, 

wind storms have revisited these woods,

again and again,

and more great trees have toppled over,

in the last month another great beech came down

across the path above the cabin,

from the same storm that knocked out power

to more than 10,000 in this county,

a power pole snapped in two by the cabin,

now many twigs and branches cover the scarred earth,

the small plants that thrived last year

have come back out and should enjoy

how much more sun and nutrients are now available,

the forest changes, adapts, yet I feel for it,

for how drastic and tumultuous the changes come,

too many are blind to the burner turned too high.

Courtesy Stanton Sweeney

by Henry H. Walker
May 25, ‘17