The dream was disturbing
I realised that what upset me the most
was that they were being cut down hard, their branches lopped off
leaving these great beings maimed and crippled.
When I awoke I realised that this is what I see all around me.
The crippled trees.
What possess these people to do this? There are men cutting off branches and hacking down trees in our public places all the time. Most of the trees have been reduced to skinny scarred trunks with a few twigs at the top.

It pains me to see them like this.
Their heads should be lush and bushy, filled with chortling birds.
Their great trunks robust and gnarly – but as soon as the trees reach this lovely shape and age- if they ever get a chance too – they are cut down to a stump – and we have no shade.
It is shocking and ugly.

Again I am struck down by my powerlessness to stop it.
What compels these people to order the removal and destruction of our trees?
When we know we should be planting more whilst keeping the older ones.
It confuses me, surely we should not do this – as the globe warms and we faint with heatstroke.

Then we drive past the forest, or where the forest used to be, to see only hectares and hectares of stumps whilst the landscape shrivels and roasts in the sun, a tinderbox of dust.
It makes no sense to me. No sense at all.

One day I shall own an arboretum, and grow trees to their full extent, their complete lifetime, every kind of tree I can find.
Each tree will keep all it’s branches, all it’s leaves – so I can sit in the shade breathing in the fine air.
Where I can close my eyes and listen to the sweet song of the birds.