Two sounds we dread with a pain raw and max:
The screams of a chain saw, chop of an ax.
If you think that we are woodenly mute,
Hist! we cry out, each, from leaf, limb, and fruit.
In winter when wind in our branches moans,
See! green in needles, kernels in our koans.
Smell! ponder the roses, sunshine dapples,
And in our forest find sundew chapels.
Hush! clouds appear, shape shifting, overhead,
Rainfall, rainbow, the woods are wet and red.
Feel! how rainwater soaks, plumbing the roots,
Spring splashing new growth, green and golden shoots.
We cherish temples of evergreen, enter, Laud!
Viriditas! O! the greening jouissance of God.
—HyC