Broken Mothers by Sara Wright

I awakened under clouds
feeling respite from fierce
heat in April that
forced maple, birch,
beech, and poplar
to bud and burst.

First we planted
Balsam seedlings;
He climbed birch
to saw off
dying trunks,
some broken
beyond recognition,
wreckage from  
the ice storm
a winter holocaust  
that stole my peace,
my trust in white,
deep restful sleep.  

My body keens
for the multitude
Removing gray birch
dims the memory
of a forest
of downed trees
that lay across
my road
Anguish
that buried me.  

This is about me
and not the trees,
I think sadly, as
if I could separate
One from the Other…
Our lives are
inextricably entwined.

And so, as each one
comes down,
is sawed and piled up
for firewood, I
feel relief.
Young evergreens
emerge, having  
been protected
by Gray Birch
for all these years…

I take a moment
to give thanks
for broken “mothers”
who nurture  
New Life.  
Gentle, generous
Living Beings
who
even in their dying
accept what is.

Sara is a naturalist, ethologist (a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.

Author: Sara Wright

I am a writer and naturalist who lives in a little log cabin by a brook with my two dogs and a ring necked dove named Lily B. I write a naturalist column for a local paper and also publish essays, poems and prose in a number of other publications.

8 thoughts on “Broken Mothers by Sara Wright”

  1. Yes, indeed, living beings should not be cut down. I sort of believe that trees should never be trimmed or cut down. Except we need wood for so many important things–framing houses, making paper, and more. I like your identification with living beings: “as if I could separate One from the Other… Our lives are inextricably entwined.”

    Bright blessings for a peaceful rest of April. Let’s all stay safe.

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    1. Like you I would rather NOT cut any trees down… but realistically we need managed forests and need more to return others to a state of rewilding where forests have the control – they know more than we ever could about what works for them! It’s this indiscriminate logging that makes me crazy. Thanks Barbara.

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  3. Lovely! This reminds me of an article I read recently (but I can’t remember where) about a town where an environmental activist joined forces with the owner of a saw mill to create a better forest while saving jobs for the town. They had been on opposite sides for so long, but they realized that the forest needed to have some thinning to be healthy, so they came up with a plan for the logging company and sawmill owner to only cut those trees that needed to be cut for the forest’s health, which was enough to keep the mill in business. I thought that was a lovely example of what positive things can happen when we all think outside of the box!

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  4. This lightly managed forest will likely not suffer from too much intrusion – its a compromise we must engage in because we use trees for everything. And this way the integrity of the whole forest is not too compromised…. old fashioned logging families in Maine operated in much the same way.

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