When you know that trees experience pain and have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down and disrupt their lives with large machines ‘.
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
10 May 2024, Amsterdam
Lofty,
Divinely lofty.
They can reach the clouds,
If the earth allows it.
They remain
grounded firmly in earth
In order to keep the oceans cool.
If the earth were not jealous,
they would rise and stroke the dust of stars.
In autumn, they declare their freedom,
While winter, they migrate into solitude.
A sanctuary for children,
birds, insects, snow, rain
Even by man’s annoying cacophony,
untouched.
They even forgive,
The axeman.
They are lofty and magnanimous,
as the breeze;
But when they bloom,
And the pavement is carpeted by their roaming petals,
are god-like, Humble.