Epilogue …. To Shahwandahgooze

 

The Holiday is over, and we have all gone home,
With lagging feet and toiling truck, over the ancient hills.

 

Shahwandahgooze!  We will remember you

 

Meditation by the otter pool, under the whispering echo of Mont Dome,
And lazy days on the white beach by the wondrous wreckage of past wilderness luxury.

 

Quiet, so peaceful under the moon.

 

How the lightning with fantastic display  with brilliant sharpness brightened the night,
And the hills hurled back the thunder. And silence once more.

 

Hot morning sun absorbing the morning mist.
And yonder smoldering in the dry dead undergrowth, a spark lit by a lightening shattered tree,

 

Grow, and died, and grew once more.

 

How small a spark to feed upon a forest, for forty-five years a stranger to smoke, to fire to flames.

 

A holocost of stupendous, fantastic, awesome forest fire.

 

Shovels, hose, pump, men, sweat and prayers.

 

Shahwandahgooze, under the glare of flames. We hold it, we hold it not.
We toiled, we sweat, we swore, we slaved, to save your glorious trees.
We ached, we worked, we fought, to save your might forest.

 

So many years of growth, of peace, of beauty, consumed by the flames.
A spark, a smoldering spark, swirled by the southern wind, mocking our weary efforts.

 

But man submits not, or else he be not man.

 

Planes, hose, pumps, food, boats, men. The embers died. A native to your pathways
Knew well the knavery of the spreading fire.

 

One fire controlled, but another yonder grows, and the night blazed under the pine fed revellery.

 

Enough! Nature had satisfied its defiance to man, thunder rolled again, the lightening flashed
Through a sweeping deluge of rain.

 

Shahwandahgooze, sleep for another forty-five years, a hundred years, we will remember you.

 

Otis and Oriole and Sitting Bull. Reflecting pools and white tailed fawns.
Fire and smoke and weary men, the fight we fought and how we held her.
The trout we caught and the mountain we climber.
The Indian Ranger and Patty Jean.
The friends we made and the laughs we had.

 

Shahwandahgooze !         By the wife of Eric Jones