The fantasy of chaining myself to a redwood

as the distance between my body and the chainsaw

decreases. The fantasy of lying between a harvester

and old growth forest. I have had both,

done neither. I have wanted to feel the wind

the chainsaw gives off inch closer

and closer, the harvester vibrating the road

beneath me, but my body knows neither sensation.

I am no real agitator, have sabotaged nothing,

but why this is, what reason there could be, I’ve hidden

from myself, redacted like classified information

within the document from which I glean a life,

though what’s left unredacted might itself be revealing.

I think of the chainsaw, its noise, its volatility.

Maybe the wind it gives off would give my life

more meaning than I can give it myself.

No, the chainsaw would rip through my body.

Sever it in half. The wind cannot give

what it does not have, what isn’t its to give.

*

Should trees have standing? Should elephants

have standing? Should we recognize nature’s claim

to legal rights?…