We have had no voice.
We were deemed unsuitable. Brought here as profit-fodder; scheme failed. Abandoned.
We adapted. Invited native fungi to collaborate: they bring us water, minerals, we give them captured sunlight, called carbohydrates, and safety. Fungus partners thrived, grew into webs branching between us, connecting us – mycelia, our cellular communication network.
Men in work boots came. Men with clipboards. Axes, trucks.
Mandated social distancing, to reduce fire danger. Amputation with no anesthesia. Neighbors, our family, chopped down, uprooted, gone. Connections broken, network destroyed.
We stand in brutal isolation.
We mourn.
We scream, unheard, a silent mycelial howl.
—
Cynthia Bernard is a long-time classroom teacher and an emerging writer of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. She lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Multiplicity Magazine, Passager, Verse-Virtual, Poetry Breakfast, The Seattle Star, and elsewhere. She was selected by Western Rivers Conservancy to serve as the Poet-Protector of Deer Creek Falls in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills.
