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News

  • Forestry Friday: The Rare Milkweed Garden at the Gardner Forest

    Sophie Oehler
    September 15, 2023

    In this Forestry Friday, the forestry team takes a trip to the Gardener Forest in Hollis to check in on a population of a rare species of milkweed. (Photo: Sophie Oehler)

  • "Good Forestry in the Granite State" is Being Revised — Take the Survey

    Wendy Weisiger
    August 29, 2023

    A steering committee representing landowners, conservation organizations, state agencies and the forest industry is guiding the process.

  • Lamprey River Forest Timber Harvest Tour

    Dave Anderson, Wendy Weisiger, Steven Junkin
    June 16, 2023

    A recent tour of an active timber harvest at the Forest Society's 162-acre Lamprey River Forest provided an excellent opportunity to see the forestry underway.

A Poem: White Ash Lament

Anna Berry
September 22, 2022
Forestry
Looking up at white ash crows in the Monadnock reservation.
The crown of an ash tree.

Editor's note: We are sharing this poem, written by an anonymous volunteer, about searching for white ash during a trip to Mount Monadnock Reservation with our forestry team. We hope you enjoy it.

 

White Ash Lament

Anonymous

 

Solemly

We bushwack into the waiting forest.

Forming a line five abreast,

A search party for White Ash.

 

We are in pursuit

Of healthy females in the canopy.

Arrow-like seeds on the ground

Call us to attention.

 

Spinning beneath towering trunks,

We look for portals to their crowns.

Up, up above the lesser trees,

Ash proclaim dominion.

 

Why do males outnumber females 7:1?

We contemplate the secrets of ash,

Gazing through our binoculars,

Peering into realms of dioecious exchange.

 

We lie on the ground

To save our necks,

Steady our hands,

And commune with the majesty.

 

The trees are oblivious,

Flinging their boughs to the sky

Festooned with tinges of autumn.

 

Is this one a female?

There, caught in the sunlight,

Glittering like crystals,

Seeds have already begun flying.

 

Your roots, your trunk, your branches

Grew as bulwarks for a century of seeds,

Alighting in their coveted spots

In the community of Monadnock.

 

But global trade and human hubris

Intervened

Invaded

Eliminated.

 

Now, what can we offer?

Inoculation for a small refugia

Of the Monadnock genepool,

Precious seeds full of hope?

 

A regeneration harvest

To jumpstart a new generation?

A parasite for the borer

That won’t out-bore us?

 

Will this be your last season of glory?

Will this be the last autumn you

Scatter your gems across the forest?

 

I lay transfixed by dancing branches

Wanting to remain forever

In dappled sunshine

Beneath the living matriarchs.

 

Beseeching them to survive.

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Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests54 Portsmouth St.Concord, NH 03301
Phone: 603.224.9945Fax: 603.228.0423info@forestsociety.org
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