Trees are symbols of this cycle, of this ever turning wheel. They signify the seasons, and show the incremental changes that occur as the wheel creaks ever onwards; the blossom of spring, the lush green of early summer, the fruits of late summer and early autumn. The dramatic colour show and loss that mark late autumn and the bare branches and evergreens of winter.

This year, in the largest anti-Illegal logging operation in the history of Brazil, in the state with the highest rate of deforestation — Pará — the wood seized was of “native woods of the Amazon biome” and did not correspond with the information declared officially.

Three poems celebrating the hazel catkin as a harbinger of spring.

I am an animist, and trees most definitely have spirits. If you spend time outside, you’d do well to spend at least some of it beneath a tree.