Submitted by Editor on
Alizah Shatzky
Among Trees
By Alizah Shatzky While I walk among ancient trees another village over there explodes. The leaves hold colours of crimson gold, yet I can't pronounce most names from over there. I give thanks to ocean moods and spawning salmon and the presence of cedars, in their survival is the hope of the world. But what of the desert on fire with bombs? Where is the hope? If all things are connected as my heart believes, the way water meets land, the writings of the wind in creaking trees and the carvings of meadows, then my walk over here can not pretend to have nothing to do with over there. It's easier to be among trees thinking of peace while my children are safe and home is a place of abundance. And I don't hear the sounds of over there. But over there has some faces over here. In the faces of the homeless, in the faces of the lonely, in the faces of poverty. Do the trees, with their centuries-long tenure in the forest, compared to my brief visit, witness the human sadness that seeps out onto the earth? And can I be so sure that they do not weep with each new wound on the creation?
Shatzky lives on Bowen Island, British Columbia
