Welcome the dance
of wind, sun, openings
in canopy
          spotted owl, marbled
          murrelet, flying squirrels
darkness holding understory
          rhythms of pacific wren,
          effervescent ferns and moss

Western redcedar:
you keeper of rain,
begetter of dugout canoes,
totem poles, long houses,
carved flutes that sing

nurse logs that decay, nourish
salmon in flaring
rivers
          until
                   heat domes,
atmospheric rivers, biblical
storms, gray oceans of greed,
vessels burning fossil fuels,
clear cuts and wildfire.

You’ve become the canary in the forest
          the one that dies first
you ask:
Does that guzzler
          pause
                    to taste the air?
Is it the reptilian brain
          that devours the canary?
Does the canary
          cough before expiring?

In what canopy remains
flight to higher latitudes
you are there, redcedar
still
         alive
                  bursting
                              cones
                                       seeds
                                                 glimmers
                                                            of light (life)