Afforestry

Maybe I like you because you believe

in artificial regeneration

which is also how I reproduce.

You hold up your hands to demonstrate what

the planting does to them, their undersides

desk-work white now and soft. My fuel load

of duff and litter smolders, unprescribed,

snags in my stand smoke up and spark. I feel

a threatened species but by such softness

as a sapling needs to be planted in

slash, quick and with straight roots. Tree-boxes cloaked

in paraffin kindle blazes in the

RV park’s fire rings, I can see it,

though you say, “Well, we’d make our own problems.”

I would, I would, I would go with you to

those problems that are ours alone and have

not yet been stewarded. I believe in the

seed tree cut, the new growth from destruction

cultivated, the controlled burn, fire-

fallow agriculture, silviculture

of selective failure. I select you.

I select you to fail. I select

you to fail me, deep in the heartwood.