Donald Illich Forest Love In all my life I had never reached the forest. I’d galloped on a horse toward its trees, drove in a tank through fields to its groves. Walking through weeds and thorns, running on a dirt trail, I attempted to attain my destination. But despite all my forward momentum, the forest shrank back, like an animal that tried to become smaller to avoid predators. There was no coaxing it to behave, like promising never to cut it for firewood, or to send compliments towards its branches' ears. The truth was that I love it with all my heart. On my notebook I doodled our names together and pretended I kissed it when I smooched my paper. Except it didn’t want to be my partner in this world. It wished to keep its owls flying through it, and its deer scampering away from wolves. Its needles dropped on the ground, forming a carpet it feared would catch fire. I offered to save it if that happened, but the forest did not trust me. It would rather burn in darkness,
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