Forests, trees: a poem

Forests, trees

So many forests to choose from. Pick one at random: Mirkwood.

I remember and don’t remember the time I was there. Understood and didn’t understand. Was in my room and in the pages. Was in awe confusion mystification bewilderment exhilaration hope fear dread. I was hungry tired called-to-dinner told-to-turn-out-the-light told-to-go-to-bed. I stayed up late into the night, and emerged from Mirkwood Forest. Changed.

For me the Mississippi River, too, has been a forest, and the bottom of the sea. St. Petersburg, Detroit, New York, Kyoto. The 1800s, 1700s, and an intergalactic future sometime after the year 3000.

We don’t allow our children into the forests anymore. Like parents who don’t let their kids out of sight down the block, we in the schools no longer untether them and let them visit the woods. We’re too smart for that. We have science now, and data. We can isolate individual tree specimens, label root systems and leaves. We have taxonomies, spreadsheets, specialists. We’ve cut down the forests and chased the tree lines back like the waters receding from Dover Beach. We have arboretums of short passages, excerpts, excised chapters, and multiple-choice tests. How smart and rich we are, and how impoverished and lost.

Peter Shull is a Midwestern novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and educator. His novel Why Teach? is now available in paperback and e-reader editions from Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kindle Store, and Kobo!

Cover Design, Nathaniel Roy

Cover art credit: Maurice Olin