Charles Hood, Downloaded Forest
Coillte
seeing a deer on a hill down in waterford
and standing, our breath lodged
like carrots in the earth of our throats.
a path which lead forward
to trees and behind to horizon –
a for-profit forest and those wild,
unused spaces of moon-
surface grey and cut wood.
a disease of machinery, infecting
the pine and beyond that the dirt
of the hillside. and the mind
of us hikers who walk it. and the eyes
of a deer with the shine
of a bird in a cage. something
wild moving, surrounded
by silence and wire; the pressure
of tracks in the shed
layer of needles to ground.
___________________
DS Maolalai
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
There’s coillte (one of the Irish words for forestry) and there is Coillte (the Company currently managing 50% of the Irish woodland); smack in the middle, breath lodged like carrots, is us.
An encounter with a deer prompts us to confront a few things: a path, a for-profit forest, a disease, a bird in a cage, silence and wire; in this specific order. I don’t think I need to connect these dots for you.
Still, I want to read a message of hope at the end of the poem and beyond, as our friend tells us of something wild moving – a lone worm, left with the responsibility of manuring that moon-surface grey that will be the land of tomorrow, or a lone woodlouse, moving under that layer of needles (pine? syringes?) in which long ago our dreams had once found shade: there will be forests.