There
was still snow on most of the upper trail up Cougar Mountain. I
was here to visit the ancient cedar grove at its top. Just before
the old-growth stand is a rock outcrop covered with small stone
cairns set up to mark this awesome spot and a wooden bridge across
a tiny creek. It is absolutely still. In the silence a red
mountain squirrel noiselessly hops across a fallen cedar. The
trees begin to tower over you. The atmosphere is deepened even
more by the witch's hair lichen drooping like Spanish moss from
the lower branches. Some hangs over the snowbound creek and some
has fallen into a pool of snow melt where it lies in coiled gray-white
stillness like some discarded strands of my grandmother's hair
left as a memento. The atmosphere deepens still more. These trees
are thought to be 600 to 1,000 years old. I realize that I am in
some deeply profound way in a very ancient place.
|
early
spring mountain . . .
the
witch's hair hanging from
an
old dead tree
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Page: Haibun by Michael
McClintock and Linda Robeck
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