I heard a chainsaw slashing into wood,
heard heavy branches breaking, understood
that by day’s end our noble Douglas fir
will be no more than sawdust. Minister,
come say a eulogy! For when the moon 
appears, the owls will all have vanished. Soon
the spry red tree voles will no more be seen
munching its needles. Oh, that tree has been
here seven hundred years. Its lanky grace,
which tossed from tempests, felt Sol’s fiery face,
and given Douglas squirrels its cones, now gives
helmeted men their daily bread, their lives
sustained by its demise. Yet every breath
they’ll take is thanks to trees — until their death.