from my cup or take
my smooth worrybead
of a seed and cast up
slow centuries of growth. I'm planned
to outlast you, stand high
above you. Make me, raw stuff
for your saws, into stairs,
beams, doors, shelves, rough
firewood, fine chairs. I am air
for your breath, I am loam
for growth. You, who need Earth
for your home, must revere, must spare
me; there will be no birth,
only a dwindling to death without
me and my kind. We are beacons;
we flare to guide, to warn.
Watch our green burning; while we
live you come to no harm.
