strange yet true continues

It's not so far fetching as it might seem, big blue baleen and the mighty pine.
One spouting in the brine, the other sprouting towards the sun.
Divergent species sharing a similar fate.

Leviathan. The very name itself rises from the depth of our shared language, to sample the vapors. Blue whales, the unknown “sulfur bottoms”of Melville's book, are perhaps the largest living creatures ever to travel this earth. Diving for hours, living for a century, and reaching a length improbable, a width gargantuan. From the crow's nest, Ishmael cries out “there she blows!”, betraying an awe that transcends his time and circumstance.

Strobus. A name first given to describe the unlikely bundle of five soft needles. White pine, by far the thickest and tallest vegetable in eastern North America, questing for the light. An super canopy platform, living four hundred years, gathering a height of 150 feet and a circumference of twelve. Pine captures our attention, as we look 3 times to see the top and then to a point beyond our perception. We tromp the woods on the lookout for a stick nest. “Timber!”, perfect for eagle or osprey, raven or broad wing.

The fibre and blubber was easy plucking for the plunder. It was a massacre unexamined, a genetic and geographic separation, inevitable. Masts of pine were required for the sailing ships, lights of oil for the towns. And so the shouts went out: “Lower the boats/repair the sleighs/sharpen the harpoon and the crosscut/haul on the bowline/there's daylight in the swamp”. And no one paused, or it was not recorded amidst the pining and the wailing.

Hiking among the last remaining old growth we hug and release the giant stems. We bury the treasure in our arms.
Tacking among the whales, the tourist boats tilt, our penchant for the photo trophy remains.
We need some reassurance that the ocean itself has not drowned.

Oil and greed. Stupidity and the saw. The targets shift, old attitudes remain.
Now whole systems crash.