Member Poem

The sound of nature

The fire burned a bright rouge,

I watched the plume of smoke

that leapt into the air.

the bright color of the flames

blue, orange, red and yellow

always flickering,

waving,

calling out in a bright voice,

A voice that shows lost people the way out of the night.

I douse the flames, and stroll away.

With the fire light gone from the impenetrable darkness of night,

the stars light up the sky

like millions of fireflies

flying free in the vastness of space.

I look around myself

and see little lights,

floating in the air continually going up

trying to join the ones already there,

and light up the night.

The wind is starting to pick up

it feels like someone is blowing through a straw,

and it is only hitting me.

the cedar trees are swaying in the breeze

their evergreen branches laughing,

laughing at the empty ones of the hardwood trees nearby.  

but their turn will come,

for hardwood trees are always given

more time to grow then the evergreens,

By the humans, so they will have their laugh,

even though they have to take much more,

Of the shame, they will have the last laugh.

As they watch the others get pulled down,

with ropes and axes,

Pulled away to the saw mill where they become boards,

With no sound they will rejoice

in the fact that they are different,

and they have not reached the end of their days

standing tall and straight, always there

staring at the stars with sightless faces

talking to each other without sound,

listening to the many different voices,

Voices of nature.

There are so many that in the end they all kind of blend together

They all sound the same to the trees,

They all sound of home,

In the woods, with their family

They celebrate, mourn, and they rejoice,

They rejoice that it is not their last year.

Then the men come

With their axes of steel, their saws of chain

And finally bring them down,

At that time they will be old and ready,

Ready to end their life with death,

The final adventure.