Chanting Woods

I’m seeing wanderers, Homo sapiens

who baptized us in Latin names;

They caress us, feel us, smell us,

What a sheer attention they give to us!

Yet, I’m standing here, nowhere to go;

I look those bipedal beings

Approaching us; it feels good, though,

To be touched as the wind eternally does;

Or as the birds softly land in our branches,

Or squirrels jump between our canopies;

Or leopards nap after their bloody meal.

Then, Sapiens’ hands grab our green eyes,

Looking for answers, when questions

unfold at each glimpse of certainty;

Who am I? Something beyond their words,

Something created out of thought,

Something not to be pondered, nor possessed.

There they go, why do they leave me all alone?

Am I not the only one worthy of holy attention?

Indeed, there’re blooming flowers to admire,

There’re pabulum bushes to study;

Everyone here has their own weirdness;

Is it unipinnate or bipinnate, or tripinnate,

These marks of our uniqueness?

I’ve never seen myself in that way,

What a wonderful sapiens language;

Every part of me has a precise stamp,

Resonating with Sapiens’ Corpus Humanum:

We have nerves, axis, bases, apexes, stipule,

Petiole, stems, tips…

It’s a giggle to encounter all these words;

But why do your hands rip out mine?

It took me several moons to grow them;

The pain is there like the sting of a bee

Or the slashing of an axe through my being;

I know you want me closer to you,

So let us have a communion together,

Since our brothers and sisters

Are dying in the name of cement and money;

If you take a part out of me, expose it

To those who can’t touch the Earth,

To those who advocate for more luxury

While I provide the sacred one

From the beginning of time;

You’re the only species in our kingdom

That can avoid this tree-slaughtering;

Who can understand deeply our role

In this forgotten nature;

Would you do that for me?

Would you fight for my existence

Like you do for your own rights?

Like you do for your own identity?