Forester Beware

Forester, warm your hands and face;
November’s chill lies in the air
and on the soggy frozen ground
beyond where men like you yourself
are usually never ever found.

This hillside chance has chosen first
to rape and pillage in your haste
with saws a’ ready, can’t it wait?
My concern can task your answering
on solid ground, young man.

Below this cliff of earth of fifty feet
there lies a silver salmon stream.
I ask you by what faith you seek
to stop a landslide in the coming rain
from entombing stony creek?

You see he says, my paperwork’s ok;
take your questions to the State.
I am a Forester and quite astute
in all such matters in my master plan;
don’t mess with me, old man.

Having guessed his answers all along
and having nothing in my hand
but soggy sand and mud, I said:
yet bones lie buried in yon watershed,
never found on solid ground.