Eulogy to a Tree - Poem

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 10, 1999 by Sarah Ann McMahan

   I walk down to the water, at the log yard.
   I stop at the big one -- Douglas fir, I think,
   and count 500 rings in its severed body.
   For pulp, they have taken down this forest patriarch,
   sawed it into eight-foot lengths, and it lies
   among the ruins in the gravel, still oozing wet
   with life.

   I wonder if it feels the pain of its sudden, meaningless demise.
   Does it have a soul, to live on and see
   what has happened to where it once sheltered the beasts
   and gave rest and birthing places
   to the creatures of the air?
   What did they do with its branches, budded in hopeful
   exuberance of life yet to come?

   I think they call it "slash," and
   heap it into a mound, and bum it on the skin of my Mother.
   Clear cut; there are no giants left now, to suck up and cleanse
   what the trucks have done to the air,
   no giant arms reaching high to catch the sun and
   bid the seasons their passing.
   Gone are the lullabies sung softly in night winds,
   soothing all who can be still enough to listen.

   This tree must remember things we cannot imagine --
   wars, perhaps, and matings, birthings and loss.
   This tree was hatched from seed before any white man dared
   to trespass its soul, trampling out forever
   what beings got in his path,
   dominating the earth and its stunned inhabitants.
   This tree could once see the horizon, clean and crested
   with all of its relations; it bore to the core of its being
   the Word of God, made flesh in all creation.

   Oh, my sacred friend, let me stand here beside your drying hulk,
   and receive your grace and dignity.
   You wise old witness to all that is good and to ultimate sadness,
   pray for me, now and forever more. Amen.

Sarah Ann McMahan Eugene, Ore.