Molly Moblo Perusse

““Young, straight, faster-growing trees aren’t better than older, rotting trees?” “Better for us. Not for the forest. In fact, young, managed, homogenous stands can’t really be called forests.” The words are a dam-break as she speaks them. They leave her happy to be alive, alive to study life. She feels grateful for no reason at all, except in remembering all that she has been able to about other things. She can’t tell the judge, but she loves them, those intricate, reciprocal nations of tied together life that she has listened to all life long. She loves her own species, too- sneaky and self-serving, trapped in blinkered bodies, blind to intelligence all around it- yet chosen by creation to know.”