ode to oregon

Two days ago, I was only a few miles from here, but I chose to go here instead. With my brother. So many memories. His. Mine. Ours. Memories of being born again, huckleberry pancakes, unknown daughters, skinny dipping, sore feet, speared trout, freedom, fire, good pot....

It's scary, really, how big the world is there, with life dying right before your eyes, and death making a bridge, a carpet, a path, a home. If I counted all the cells in the forest, I wondered, would the balance come out in favor of life or death? It's complicated. Consider the tree:
center heartwood - dead
middle sapwood-alive
outer bark - dead

Shall we have a reading, then?
How about something from the diary of Opal Whiteley?

From Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart

I heard the mama calling.
She did send me in a hurry to the woodshed.
She wanted two loads of wood.
The first load I brought in a hurry.
The second load I brought not so.
I did pick up all the sticks my arms could hold.

I looked long looks at them.
I did have thinks about the tree
they all were before they got chopped up.
I did wonder how I would feel
if I was a very little piece of wood
that got chopped out of a very big tree.
I did think that it would have hurt my feelings.
I felt the feelings of the wood.
They did have a very sad feel.