Riding out the Great Turning

Watching ecocide in the Gulf
and the woodcutters thinning the forest above my house
I wonder if we'll make it

Then I realize we won't.
The glaciers really are melting
And we are past Peak Oil.

My neighbors are cutting down the trees
because they need to sell the wood this winter.

I ride my bike up the mountain every morning
bring tobacco offerings for the tree spirits
Apologize a thousand times to Mother Earth
Say "good morning" to the guys with the chain saws.

In the old ways of the Maori,
If a tree was taken to make a canoe,
15 seedlings were planted in the same place
and a young man would camp there for three months,
making prayers for the new trees
until they were well rooted.