Poem Draft By Maya Apfelbaum
www.facebook.com/SerendipityStiltDancers

Sacred Grove.
Do we know the treasure trove
Still growing rings each season, Still breathing in our midst?

Here we are again,
At this last line in the sand,
Almost blasted away again.
But we walk, talk, dance, sing, think, write and sink our roots even deeper in the soil
and link our arms and organizational branches,
We say NO to using this Silver Maple Forest Land
As the site for a large unsustainable affordable housing development.
GO instead and build it where it is less stressful on the land.
Be Heroic Man, get a better and more attainable master plan.

Can we unite enough to stand against corporate money and business as usual?
Can we keep housing affordable for the non-human creatures who already live here? And for those folks who rent or own homes nearby in the related flood plain zones?

Build the affordable housing, somewhere not this intricately and delicately woven into the immediate stability
of those right around it and the fragile health of the planet at large.

On a wing and a prayer of a small warbler off course, and a giant hawk, of course,
we continue to embark in this struggle to save the forest.
On the soft hoof prints of the herd of deer, and the shallow paw marks of a small solo fox left in the damp mud of the path,
we still can take a pause.
Remember the beauty here, what its worth in well being,
and --- how easily the water swells and covers the land;
and what that’s worth in actual cents and dollar costs.

How much more likely the flooding is because of all the other decisions already
where rapid expansion has overtaken awareness or concerns for our sense
of connection, and our overall longer term societal and physical health.
More cars, roads, buildings, industries, technologies, profits, work, malls, emissions…
In the name of “Progress,”
a growth that becomes more cancerous than helpful in nature.
So the stress mounts and decisions are made from fear.

So, yes, let the affordable housing be built. It is important.
But build it where it is better.
Imagine then the residents of that housing development and of the already existing residential and work places already
near this silver maple forest grove,
Still being able to come here
to learn, to play, to work, to gather, to pray,
to believe in the power of a group of citizens
who sensed that This is sacred land.
Now imagine this forest Disappeared.

No longer here at all. Just more square and rectangular buildings and halls and the nearby mall for consuming fun.

The Silver Maple Forest Grove.

Let it stand as it is -- a real and valuable nearby forest and also as a symbol of larger trajectory:

that we know the treasure trove in our midst and with it our wealth, health, our air and water,

And we choose to weave a legacy of livability for the trees for many springs to come,
For their saplings to grow well and for our sons and daughters,
to know something of the natural cycles, the stars, the sun and moon,
and the power of a tree to breathe air, filtered and refueled with oxygen, back to us,
and the power of the trees to keep us cooler below a hot relentless sun, beating down
in a time fast and furious coming down the runway…

Let the Silver Maple Forest
Be testimony to
The power to change and come across divides,
To reach over that last line in the sand.

Reach “the Man” and help him to bend his power and money to a more sustainable vision, relocate the building mission, and overcome this dangerous division.

Maya Apfelbaum.

Revision 3 on Friday 8.1.2014