These Wood Entities

It’s the trees that make me cry
more than anything.
The hemlock stands strong
with its twigs of green and cones
until the last moment
when snow hides the earth
and deer eat the branches bare.
The red cedar stands alone
in fields long abandoned.
Slow but steady it grows
Only to be chopped for chests and posts.
The blue spruce lives long,
valued for its beauty,
but outgrows its friends
well after they are gone.
The red pine feeds mice and birds of song,
but, in eating the seeds,
these creatures devour descendents.
The catalpa with its beans
would seem exempt from my sorrow,
but it too has flowers that quickly fade.
The syrup maple is kind with abundance,
and thus has its sweet sap stolen
before it ever has a taste of itself.
The reason, my friend, these wood entities
bring such strife and pain
is because of the human struggle they endure.

Mankind inflicts the destruction,
and suffers the denouement.