The creeks run red with the blood of the hills

as ax and chain saw bite deep.

The slaughter of trees for the market place

make protesters blockade and weep.

 

The slopes are bare and the stumps, like tombs

litter the clear cut field.

The logging roads slash an ancient face

with a wound that may never be healed.

 

But lo and behold the “Planters” have toiled.

Step strike and then bending low.

A new tree is set in the gravely soil

and we pray that the seedlings will grow.

 

And grow most do, through wind, sun and hail

to green a barren hill side.

Though the forest is gone, a harvest will come.

The circle of commerce is tied.

David Garlick, Port Hardy, July, 1994