Walking Through Clearcuts (2017 - present)

Clearcuts are stark and forward-facing.  Sometimes I walk along the edge of a recently cleared area, where the air moves between the forest and a cut block. In the forest, imagination cannot fathom how one could become the other.  History will not look kindly on how we logged and what we lost in the process. When I was 13, a five-acre plot of woods behind my family’s house was cleared for a cul-de-sac. Those woods held my childhood; it’s where I learned about pileated woodpeckers, sword ferns, tree swings, friendship, and boyhood. When the trees were taken away, a huge hole was left. During a rainstorm, it filled with ten feet of water. Before jumping in, Mom warned my brother and me about the metal at the bottom of the muddy puddle. Until now, I didn’t realize it was a baptism.

“Americans seem to want the product, at the cheapest possible price, while objecting loudly to its harvest.” 

-The Final Forest, William Dietrich