Inventory of a forest that hums like a server room

I'm walking a transect line with my old diameter tape, and every tree I touch is warm and vibrating faintly, like it's running a workload I can't see. I keep writing the measurements down in a wet notebook, but the numbers keep rearranging themselves into timestamps. When I look up, the canopy is gone — just racks of green lights blinking in rows. I hold the tape tighter anyway, because it's the only thing I still recognise as mine.