Somewhere nearby, a chainsaw growls and whines.
My heart hurts when I hear it;
when it is followed by dreadful thunder – a shaking of the earth.
A tree cracks and falls; gives way and dies.
I know that decades ago the same thing happened here where I sit.
Someone carved one and a half acres out of standing timber.
Now, I have a place to sit and lament.
I guess nobody is to blame. It is what it is.
Still, I am sad. How long can this go on before there are no more trees?
I see the forest nearby.
I can almost hear the trees breathing into the sky.
I am a brother to them.
They breathe out; I breathe in.
We breathe together.
And that, I suppose, is why I am sad.
My brother has fallen and breathes no more.
Someday, a man will come and knock on the door.
He will say, “Sell me half of your land. I’ll give you a good price.”
He will have plans.
He wants to hire a contractor to cut down the trees;
to sell their bodies to build a house.
He will hire others to build a house here.
He will sell it for a good price.
Then he will study images taken from the sky
looking for patches of green.
He will knock on someone else’s door and say,
“Sell me your Land. I will give you a good price…”
Chainsaws whine and growl.
Trees crash to the ground.
My heart hurts.
