The sound of grinding gears shriek through the forest as the shearer tears through the bark of the ancient pines. A crack like a gunshot echoes as another tree is sundered, swaying and falling like a toy soldier. Sap oozes from the remaining trunk like blood, desperately trying to close a wound that will never heal again. It smells like Christmas, an ironic thought as we watch the machine stack the newly-dead like victims of war.

Above us the birds circle, crying out in terror and outrage as their homes crash to the mossy floor. They dive bomb with a reckless courage, desperately seeking for their nests and the young left inside. Some of us run away from the sharp attacks, but something in me keeps me still and I search in vain for their quarry, my own heart wrenching at their loss as they pay for the greed of our species. I feel like a monster, at a loss to stop this destruction.

I feel cold pinpricks of water falling from above and I look up at the darkly opaque sky.

To find it’s weeping with me.