Logging

Driving through hilly mountains

Hues of green fill my Spirit

with spring.

Cresting another hill

I avert my eyes—

Shame drops like a shroud.

A near distant hill stripped,

crisscrossed by cat-o-nine tails

flogging

left naked to fend off

elements.

Gentle giants,

Tree protectors

hauled off to be shredded

to pulp

for the paper that sits on

the seat beside me

and lays in the ditch by the road.

Tears fall

From heaven’s cloud

As bit by bit

Masterpiece re-builds

Again.

Joy Eastridge

(written near Pennington Gap, Virginia)

May, 2013