It was a massacre.
Incessant din of chainsaw chomps.
Every day I thought, surely, I was next to
fall.
You built a fence around me
from the flesh of my brothers.
You call me "sacred."
It's supposed to mean "holy"
but that's a lie.
"Sacred" means
"We're sorry we killed your family."
Or, more accurately
"We feel bad that we killed your family
and we want to feel better."
Or, maybe to you, "sacred" means
"For some reason, you make us feel, and
now we simply cannot kill you."
Fools.
Even the smallest sapling
could be "sacred" one day if you
left it alone.
But we need to be half as old as Christ
and half as high as heaven
before you realize that
we deserve to live for our own sake.
Not die for yours.
Photo: 1,000 year-old tree in the Alishan National Forest of Chiayi County, Taiwan. Many trees like this one were cut down during the Japanese colonial era (1895 - 1945). The giant torii gate at Tokyo's Meiji Shrine, for example, is made of trees from Alishan.
Photo Credit: Author