Dusty Forest Glen

Money has no meaning
to the glen
and yet the reapers come
with the spring,
rumbling—yellow jackets
against the green.

They come gnawing
the forest
like screaming beavers
crying out
in urgent painful
echoes
which reverberate
from this mountain
to that mountain
and back again
and again

again.

More yellow jackets
descend. They come whirling,
like mechanical hovering maple seeds,
lifting the logs—taking it all
until only dusty-grey earth is left to rise.

When there is nothing—
no more trees to take,
they will retire.

They will send their sons to school
where they teach them
to make toothpicks.