Boole Tree

(May 2022, Sequoia National Forest. Sitting at the foot of the Boole Tree. Poetic structure is a little joke for the computer programmers out there.)

If this is the last monarch standing in Converse Basin
Then is it lonely?

If this is the eighth largest sequoia in the world
Then does it sense its peers so far away?
If this is the largest tree in all National Forests,
Then I will sit here on this large root, and no tourists disturb.

If I sit here long enough,
Then would your bark grow around me?
If your timescale is so much longer than mine
Then how fast does the touch of this butt feel?

If I pee on your roots,
Then will you accept my offering?

If fire has killed these craters and edges
Then how deep need I go to find life again?
If you can bear burnholes bigger than most trees
Then can I too survive great pain if I grow big enough?
If you can still stay alive through flames and genocide,
Then how could I ever give up?

If the tree permits me to climb it,
Then what will it get in return?

If Boole and his clearcutters and kingkillers needed profit,
Then why leave this lone survivor?
If National Forests belong to everyone in the nation,
Then why has Weyerhauser clearcut every National Forest in the Northwest for private profit?
If I were to personally guillotine the CEO of Weyerhauser,
Then would I be better or worse than the killer of a million trees?

If I can feel anger and sadness for the missing sequoias,
Then can the Boole Tree feel anger and sadness?
If trees can mourn,
Then what does their mourning feel like?
If these hidden roots share with the young forest,
Then can mourning look like growing?

If I climb to sit on your gnarled knoll
Then will you permit me the vision of your height?

If I fell from this height, this tiny fraction of you,
Then would you put my molecules to good use?

If you outlive me,
Then maybe we have a chance.

If those three young sequoia keep growing together,
Then will they be one sequoia?
If some of these sprouts are other kinds of tree,
Then do you like them, or do you wish they were sequoia?
If some of these sprouts around are sequoia,
Then will you live to see them grow as tall as the family you recall?

If one day Converse Basin regrows as an epic forest of giants again,
Then I think the sequoias will have you to thank for showing them how to grow old.

If trees are social creatures, which I think you are,
Then I bet underground right now is the revolution,
your massive rootsystem silently and systematically regrowing a garden of yourself,
sharing your abundance with the young who have yet to reach the heights of life.

If anyone can help me preserve and regrow what I love after the coming fires,
Then I think you can.