It’s one in the morning & my daughter is missing
I lie in the dark car, a crate of tools by my head
(I should be calling her father)
We started out together, peaceful citizens walking the logging road, shaded
by old growth trees, police helicopters, yellow-taped exclusion zones
that moved in puppet-string tugs—government toying with prey.
We carried contraband: for me, innocuous diapers, sunscreen, water
sundries needed by arrestees; for her, makings of hard locks
crow bars, zeal, reasons why, bags of cement, sixty pounds & sixteen years
of life slung on her back, (I should be combing the road for her,
the passing terror of search lights, boots vanishing into bush
as night-ops quads roar by . . . )
***
It all went wrong at the checkpoint
shouts in the dusk, AAAAAs of arm-folded, spread-legged men
bowling pins in an alley of smug trucks, exhaling idle patience
exhaust blending with sudden dense fog, the droplets
golden in blinding headlights. I was a distractor, supposed
to take my riteful passage, while the concrete crew detoured
a deer trail, eight men, one girl, (mine—missing—she is sixteen
& I am her imperfect mother,) but fresh rules had been concocted
the platoon of cops, fingers twitching, no point in a night fight
& she had already become the dark forest
no phones, no radios, no way to say come back
tho’ my silent mouth did its best, over & over
& now I do as I’m told, lie in the dark car
a crate of tools by my head, think everything
mothers think when children are missing, in fog
in darkness, on strange mountains, with strange men, (I should
have arms enough to reach her, enough to wrap the forest
not let go, I should—I don’t even know their names!)
* * *
Is it enough that we all believe in trees? That this logging
of ancients has broken us—will break the sky?
Two am footsteps, my daughter breathless
the chase, the hiding, the nearly-being-caught, the stashing of goods
no map of where, the newly-minted friends Foxglove, Felix, Peace,
my daughter, here, unlost, unhurt, un-scarred, un-scared.
We feign sleep in a theatre of gravel, windsung by ghosts
of once-were-trees. At dawn we crowd the barrier, breast the yellow tape
move to higher ground, where—cat & mouse—there is more tape
fresh & festive, a thin blue line of uniforms, weapons ready
while we have only songs & selves, limp bodies
& though we defer logging, ride a paddy wagon, still the trees we came for
fall
& fall.