don’t touch them
my mother says to me
when she thinks I got carried away
with grubbing up
they were this big
when I came here
I turn off the chain-saw
and we look at them
for a few moments in silence
admiring them as beings older and bigger
than our memories together
and sometimes
we embrace them nestling our faces
to their finely wrinkled bark
and we call the wind to rock them
the whole of their 25 metres
OUT of pure pleasure