so much time spent in forests
maybe it was natural to want these plains
of wheat, barley, rapeseed, concrete,
but then, we build cities
—we’re forest people still

after the cedar, the oak
after the oak, the pine,
after the pine, the palm, the kapok…
we’re good at turning things into names;
at coding the world, then remaking it:
we can cut an entire forest of kauri
into the image of San Francisco