Browsing through the foliage
You selectively suppress
The spindly growths of youth,
Maintaining gaps of light
Through frequent visitations
To clumsily prune each trunkful
Of frail and wasteful biomass.
Ungainly gardeners of this
Fragile, jaded home,
Your disturbances reshape
Wooded structures and
Buried thickets;
Shearing lively brushes
As you cultivate thicker
Trunks that lap greedily
At our dirty, cast-off air.
Pausing for breath,
You perch motionless;
Each trembling lungful
A rhythmic shadow to the
Silent inhalations of
Your custodial canopy.
Stewards of our Eden,
We reward these gifts
By weeding your garden;
The rapidly rising shoots
Burying your footsteps
As the forest’s exhalations
Become a ragged wheeze.
A forest elephant family group in a rainforest clearing (Photo Credit: Richard Ruggiero/USFWS).
This poem is inspired by recent research, which has shown
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