By Liliane Richman
The forest resisting
arching and groaning
under the rush of violent winds
succumbed to the last tree
each mature pine falling
embracing its neighbor
the crush of branches
littering of giants on the ground.
“You should have heard the howling,”
says my dear Paulette.
“The forest is dead.
Killed by a roaming cyclone
imported by global warming.”
Paulette is 82 years old
lives alone and walks with a slow shuffle.
She had no water for a week
no electricity for two
no telephone, no television.
She was cold and stayed in bed all day
And wishes she were younger
to move from her ancestral home
far from this desolation.
“You know how
how long it takes
to regrow such tall pines?”
Ah, Paulette, I’m with you
mourning for the forest, the ferns,
the sap, the deep silence, the cicadas
the pines are cut through
a long incision near the bottom of the trunk
the amber colored resin
collecting in a clay pot
sent to the one existing factory
the commercial hub
of the townlet in its heyday
when you father was CEO
Once upon a time it was
Nineteen forty-two
I appeared in your family
grew up and thrived
and departed again
then returned year after year
as late as last summer
surrounded by you
and the forest
of tall pines that died
two thousand and nine.