The Loggers

DeNiord_Spruce-Trees.jpg

move from tree to 

tree in the thrill of fel-

ling, feeling the sky in-

side their eyes as the 

canopies open onto 

forever and the blue blue

hue of heaven croons

a song called “nothing” 

called “everything” as the 

chorus of foliage soughs a-

long beneath the noise of

Brobdignagian saws at

the necks of oaks, pines,

palmitos, kapoks, bao-

bubs, ashes, palms, ipe,

teaks, redwoods, lo-

custs, walnuts, mahog-

anies, birches, hick-

ories, beeches, cedars, 

spruces, hemlocks, cher-

ries, and firs for a rea-

son they can’t explain oth-

er than to say, “We’re fol-

lowing a longing to 

raze the trees we love and 

because they’re there is 

all with a cost we can’t re-

sist to tear the sky and al-

so—dare we say the supra-

lapsarian saw?—"be-

cause we can,” which 

sounds depraved, we 

know, but echoes as a 

call that lures us into the 

oldest groves where the 

hermit thrush incants a 

song that grows as an aur-

al seed inside the ear in-

side our ears: “oh holy hol-

y, ah, purity purity eeh, 

sweetly sweetly” and the 

chickadee’s stutter up-

braids in vain: “There’s some-

thing deeply wrong be-

neath that has swelled to 

a progress that is no 

less than the clear-

cut forests that are void

of any Hawthorne ef-

fect which might have dis-

abused you of the fact that

a tree amounts to on-

ly a stick on the scale of 

your hearts when you’ve 

felled so many you have no 

notion of the loss you’ve 

wrought because you’ve 

thought from the start that 

the genius of saws, skid-

ders, splitters, and trucks 

permitted you license to 

“do as you wish” which 

you have, in fact, be-

cause it’s your job—fel-

ling trees in heaven’s the-

ater—and the industry de-

mands it and you’re good 

at it Goddamit and it’s thril-

lling besides to watch 

them fall so slowly a-

cross the sky and onto 

the ground where they 

shake the Earth itself like 

a word that’s holy if cursed

and because the mus-

ic of cracks, crashes, and 

thuds has drugged your 

blood with a thirst to 

drink the sky with your al-

ready loaded eyes in the 

din of Husqvarnas, Poul-

ans, Stihls, and Tigercats.”

DeNiord_ash-3785535_1280.jpg

Chard deNiord is the former poet laureate of Vermont and author of seven books of poetry. Read more.


“The Loggers” was previously published in The Progressive.

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