BY MARK WILLIAMS/LA EARTH FIRST!

We live in a time of vigil.

Of keeping vigil with each other, in these desperate times rife with the false optimism of the selfish and short-sighted, in order to remind ourselves: We are not alone. Others, too, care about the last howling wolf, the last old redwood, the last piece of ungraded, unbuilt, free-spirited land. We care, and others care, and so we keep vigil, bucking up our spirits, drying our tears together.

We also keep vigil, as in "vigilance," over those who are too scared, too wounded, too angry to stop their so-called "work," their "careers," which they claim, astonishingly, are dependent on killing off those last wolves, those old trees, those last open lands.

We witness for the sake of others, those who will follow and someday ask us to explain how it happened-though, finally, there can be no explanation-and ask us what we did to stand against it.

Thus, our vigils, more and more, involve impeding, slowing down, stopping where we can the gnashing gears of the terrible machine we've loosed upon the world, this juggernaut that will not be satisfied until everything wild is sucked up, ripped apart, genetically recombined, sold to pulp mills, packaged and otherwise stuck away on a shelf with a price tag on its side, offered up to anyone with enough coins in their hand.

We try to stop this machine, and every once in awhile, for a minute or two, we do. We stop it, and in that rare brief silence, precious music can be heard. Echoes, from a long ago dance. Tantalizing, reminding us of what is being lost, day after day, year after year, life after life.

Indeed, sometimes-more and more often it seems-a life, or many lives, is what it takes to slow this great machine down, even for that single minute. We are here to mourn one of those lives, David Chain's, offered up in defense of that great song, the music that can only come from a place when it's left wild and free.

David Chain gave up his life to stand against Maxxam's relentless, tax-subsidized lust for profits. Profits so that a man like Charles Hurwitz can order up an extra steak or buy a new Rolex and still not be satisfied with his lot in life. And, not being satisfied, a man like Charles Hurwitz and a company like Maxxam-and really, in this age of global empire, aren't they all like Maxxam?-a man like Mr. Hurwitz, in his own terrible restlessness, will seek another forest to cut, another stream to ruin, another community to tear apart.

Our leaders call that "business" in this day and age. Those of us here keeping vigil in the name, spirit and memory of David Chain know what it's really called. Its name is something entirely different than what our governors, our presidents, our Speakers of the House would call it.

In fact, it's murder. We're not talking about the circumstances of David's death now; the legal folks might wind up calling it "manslaughter" or whatever, but what's happening to the planet, plain and simple, is murder.

David knew it. He was willing to put his life on the line for it. And he paid.

All that's left to us now, then, is vigil-in the sense of community, in the sense of renewed action, in the sense of that word's common root with "vigorousness."

A vigil with our eyes wide open, our ears ready for wolfsong, our arms ready to hold a tree and defend it-and to hold onto each other while we're doing it.

This vigil here, then, doesn't mark the end of anything or anyone. But a beginning. Something new-like the Freedom Riders trying something new in their long marches and at their lunch counters. Like Julia Butterfly trying something new with her long, warrior stance up in the tree she calls Luna.

Something new for us. A vigil for a martyr.

It's not anything we want to get used to. It's a terrible reason to get together. Just like the destruction of a redwood grove is a terrible reason, no matter how much we might bond with each other.

Terrible reason or not, here we are. At vigil. Alone. Together.

Let's move forward from this place arm in arm. Let's stop the machine for a moment or two and listen to that sweet rare music again.

Let's be vigilant. And let's make the world a place of sweet wildness once again.

In fact, let's start right now: with a long coyote-wolf howl at the moon and stars. Loud enough for David to hear us...