The forest loved us long before we learned its name.
In its quiet breath, it kept our secrets,
laid cool shadows at our feet,
and raised its arms to hold the sky steady
so the sun would not fall too harshly on our skin.

But we—
we learned the language of axes faster than gratitude.
We walked into its green heart with pockets of greed,
forgetting the hands that shaped our air,
forgetting the gentle choir of leaves
that once sang us out of our sadness.

We plucked life from its roots,
called it progress,
called it convenience,
never stopping to ask if the earth winced,
never wondering what happens
to the small creatures who kneel beside the stumps
like mourners with no voice loud enough to be heard.

And so the forest began to fall—
one tree, then another—
as though each trunk collapsing
was a chapter ending in a book we refused to read.

Yet still,
from the wounded soil,
a stubborn green keeps rising—
young trees daring to love us again,
even after witnessing all we destroyed.

It is a strange thing,
how nature forgives faster than humans pause,
how the forest keeps loving,
even when we barely try to deserve it.

One day _
when the air grows thin with our choices
and the sky forgets how to breathe for us,
we will look for the shade we once took for granted.
We will search for the whisper of leaves—
the same leaves we burned without listening.

Maybe then,
we will understand that every tree we cut
was a piece of ourselves falling,
that every forest we wounded
was a future we refused to protect.

The forest loved us first.
The question is—
will we learn to love it back
before the last tree decides
it can no longer wait.