I 'm with Joyce Kilmer -- "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree."

I'm even with city Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who recently waxed poetical before the Portland City Council on the "incredible" "show-stopping" trees growing in Portland. But before I could recall the last lines of Kilmer's poem -- "Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree!" -- Saltzman went on to say something that's creepy and chilling:

"It sometimes pains me to think that we have no ability to control their destiny -- that a private landowner can take this tree down on a whim. So I think somewhere, woven into all this, is that we establish more of a notion that trees have rights, too, that trees have rights. And that's what we're looking at in terms of some of the enforcement policies that we're working on and the continued designation of more heritage trees for their protection where we have willing property owners but I do think we have to look where we don't have willing property owners . . . ."

Where to start here? Is it Saltzman's notion that "trees have rights, too"? Is it his obvious appetite to control the destiny of trees that their owners can take down on a whim? (Question: If trees have rights, too, how can Saltzman arrogate unto himself the control of their destiny?) Is it his condescending notion that Portlanders are too impulsive and arboreally insensitive to recognize the importance of the trees on their property? Is it his itch to use the force of law to bring "unwilling landowners" into line? Or is it the fact that this "trees are people, too" mumbo jumbo comes from the City Council's most measured member?

It's an odd calculus Saltzman has in store for us. The rights that Saltzman wants to give trees will come at the expense of the rights that Americans have long held, even in Portland: property rights that allow private landowners to tend to the trees, shrubs, grass and rocks on their piece of heaven.

Which reminds me: If trees have rights, on what philosophical grounds can we deny shrubs, bushes and rocks rights? They can be as "incredible" and "show-stopping" as a mighty oak, a towering elm or a broad maple. If you go in for extending rights to nonhumans, isn't Saltzman guilty a kind of speciesism?

Or some other "isms"? Lookism and ageism? After all, it's hard to believe that Saltzman wants each and every tree to have rights. It's likely that only gorgeous trees will get them. Or heritage trees that, as Saltzman said, "have been there long before us." But shouldn't plain or young trees have rights, too? At least in the moral universe of our Thomas Jefferson of trees?

Or maybe not. Here's the most unsettling aspect of the "trees have rights, too" talk: Saltzman would have sparked a real firestorm if he had dared to say that Portland's unborn children should have rights and protections, too. The ultimate ageism.

Alas, the devaluation of human beings and the elevation of trees and animals can be seen in the great California Sea Lion Pigout at Bonneville Dam. There, male sea lions gather near the dam's fish ladders to bulk up on salmon and steelhead. The brutes gobble up an estimated 16 percent to 20 percent of the five runs that return to the Columbia each year from February to May, according to government briefs. The government wants to take lethal measures against a limited number of California sea lions. But the Humane Society of the United States has gone to court to stop this, arguing that this action will cause emotional pain. Ridiculous.

Emotional pain? Tell that to the sport and commercial fishing communities and tribes that suffer while the sea lions stuff themselves.

It's not as if California sea lions are native to the area or dining in a habitat unruffled by man. They only arrived in 2002, and they're bellying up to man-made fish ladders that only they deem feeding troughs. Also, these Californians have ignored Gov. Tom McCall's words to visit Oregon but don't stay.

No wonder. According to the federal government, one Bonneville regular (C265) was captured on March 6, 2007. He weighed 559 pounds. He was released, and he returned to the dam. Captured, again, on May 21, 2007, he weighed in at 1,043 pounds. Homo sapiens: Don't try this at Hometown Buffet.

Emotional pain? If you're not worried about actual humans whose lives are affected by the sea lions' piggish ways -- if you think humans have no elevated place in creation -- then, at least, think of salmon and steelhead stocks that are "listed" under the Endangered Species Act. They're species, too. Shouldn't salmon and steelhead have rights, too?

David Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8152 or davidreinhard@news.oregonian.com.