On Why Saving It Is Important

Forest Children

Colette Inez

We heard swifts feeding in air,

sparrows ruffling dusty feathers,

a tapping on stones, mud, snow, pulp

when rain came down, the hiss of fire.

Counting bird eggs in a dome of twigs,

we heard trees fall and learned

to name them on a page for school.

And living among trees, in the shadows

of their leaves and seeds, we had

the mystery of numbers, we believed,

from figuring angles of the sun

or counting stumps in a widening field.

Each day saws substracted boughs

for books of double algebra, equations

in a text we carried home

past hacked down pines.

Conjuring the spirit of the grove,

in a circle we sang:

“Mark out planes of shade and light

that seedlings might root.”

One morning in spring

trees showed winter skeletons

through smoke, abrupt curves, bent oak.

We were stripped of words to cast a spell.

“Algebra cadabra,” someone shouted

pointing to a vanished nest

we remembered as braided of moss,

ivy tendrils and spider’s silk.