I'm Adeli Mone and this is The Slowdown.

Right now I'm in Sonoma, California, on Moon Mountain where friends have let me a place

to stay on and off for the last 12 years.

The view is breathtaking.

I can see Sonoma Mountain from here and in between there's a valley full of vineyards

and trees.

What strikes me the most is the trees and understory are coming back after the terrible

fires of October 2017.

Nearly five years later, there's so much green everywhere.

After the nun's fire burned over 55,000 acres.

When those fires were raging, I was home in Kentucky watching my hometown hills burn

on the news.

Of course I was worried about people first, my beloved friends.

But it also hurts so much to think about the trees, the animals, the birds, jack rabbits,

here, everything that was trying to find shelter.

But now here I am, looking out at the land, trying hard to heal itself.

And my friends say, this year, even the birds seem to be coming back.

Today's poem is about the sorrow of losing trees and animals and how sometimes it takes

witnessing a loss in order to know how deeply we are connected to the earth.

The trees are down by Charlotte Mew and he cried with a loud voice, hurt not the earth,

neither the sea nor the trees, revelation.

They are cutting down the great plain trees at the end of the gardens.

...