Avatar Grove

we name them to suit the sense
that we have of ourselves,
the grand theme of using things up

ours to consume
ours to do as we wish

such power for the thinker,
but the old trees - that douglas fir
on the west coast rising 300 feet
and a 1000 years old, not a whimper
about its lofty height

just a presence that will make you weep
when you stand before it, waves
of uncontrollable joy and wonder
as if you have discovered truth

it seems so clear,
how the Universe picked you,
that moment

some years ago, perhaps when Champlain
wandered about old Quebec City,
the tree felt an alien wind shifting
about its limbs, a chill creeping up its
massive trunk that comes when
the world finds you out

to kill the ancient ones, is to kill the part
of ourselves that wants to learn
why they stood so long,
what they know
and what they have seen

David Suzuki taught us this,
that our children, and on and on,
need to know that they still rise
like worlds from the
moss and ferns