If a lumberjack falls a tree in the forest
and a forest defender isn’t there to hear it fall
does it make a sound?
does anyone recognize
the death
of a thousand year old being?
do they realize the connection
between the heartbreaking boom
and their new deck, siding, and hot tub?
or is it only the few
who are dedicated enough
to put their
bodies, minds,
freedom, reputation,
on the line
who know what
the destruction of our planet
sounds like,
looks like,
feels like?
the destruction of our planet?
oh yeah, I heard about that once,
that’s happening over there somewhere,
they don’t mention it on
my weekly television serial
or even on the evening news
so it must not be
too important.

He goes into the forest at night
to set a line in a tree,
sends up a friend
to face a climber,
touches each tree along the way,
thanks it for existing,
for being around so long,
says goodbye.
wakes up early in the morning,
they start falling just before dawn,
he goes out to the road
to watch the ancient ones fall,
to be a witness to their death
after so many hundreds of years,
feels and hears
the earth shaking Boom
of their bodies falling,
remembers touching them
the night before,
that one
with the particularly knarled bark
is the next to go,
incessant buzzing of chainsaw
halts for a moment,
tall tower of living tree
keels over,
hits a smaller tree
on the way down,
shatters it in two,
reaches the ground
with a heart wrenching thud
that echos through the valley,
the lumberjack shouts yiiihaa!
with the apparent exileration
of destruction,
two people in the top
of a neighboring tree
cry out in mourning,
the cars on the freeway
zip idlly by
in steal-plated,
sugar-coated
oblivion.

She drives her van around
all day, all night,
collecting people and supplies
to save the forest,
the inside of the van
is a tangled mesh of
backpacks, ropes, vegetables,
lockboxes, bread, harnesses,
breathing bodies, caribeners,
peanut butter and jelly,
tahini and honey,
surviving on sandwiches
for days on end,
every waking thought
spent manifesting
the ingredients of
forest defense,
catching some sleep
here and there,
waking up early
to see trees fall,
tears
running down her cheeks.

They post a guard
at the bottom
of the tree,
sixteen people come out,
the trees call them,
they dodge to and fro
out numbering the guards
they manage to pass
food and water
to their friend
in the tree.

Men and their machines
come to bust in a road
through the forest,
through the density of trees,
maddening machines
that scare the birds away,
scare life away,
She comes down from her tree,
goes up the road to stop them,
gets tackled to the ground,
manhandled by loggers,
arrested by cops,
dragged of hog-tied
singing songs of freedom,
barefoot in the cop car,
she keeps singing,
fingerprinted in the station,
she keeps singing,
they put her in solitary
‘cause she’s a crazy
singinng lady,
barefoot forest creature,
enclosed by barren
cement walls
on all sides,
one of the walls
has an intercom,
to be used for emergancies only,
she presses the button
and sings into it,
she sings:
“I want to know where freedom is,
I want to know where freedom lives,
I want to know why freedom dies,
I want to know why no one cries,
cry freedom.”