The flowers have all faded, the seeds scattered to the wind and to be swallowed by the ground; the moisture has evaporated and leaves burnt by the sun hang on by a mere thread before casting themselves off to die and become mulch and eventually new soil…
And still there are places where the pika squeak and thrive, where cold-loving evergreens reach toward the sky, where wild mountain waters run under stone through creases in alpine meadows… . . . …But even those pikas are threatened, so many of the trees have been lost to beetle-kill and other blight, and the waters are low, the snows shallow…
Though a part of me is struck with the surreal and comic absurdity of this moment in time (and perhaps even the possibilities for change it may provoke), I must address the pain and grief that was my and so many people’s first response…