Claire Keyes Wood, Paper, Poems You promised me a pretty lake if we chose this path sprinkled with wildflowers: flagrant reds, champion blues, but how subtle was Allied Lumber with its backhoes running giant claws across the mountain, leaving behind this tangled slash of branches, twigs and stumps? A scavenger with a chain-saw and a pick-up works at the slash, reducing it to chunks he can burn or sell. He gives us a nod as we pass in our sturdy boots, their thick rubber treads. I'm reminded of the pilgrim in the hallowed book snapping a twig from the tree, falling back when the tree speaks: Why do you break me? Have you no pity then? Ravaged, I say, and there's more slash ahead. I don't want to see it, want to turn back to camp. Only you won't let me. After the clear-cut, a stupendous view, a panorama. Where do you think wood comes from anyway? Wood, paper, poems?

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