Snow's about four inches deep. Wet snow, little powder. My stocking cap with its Salt Lake City Olympic pins attached to its rim is pulled down low on my head and over my ears. Little wind, but awfully cold. The blood thins after a few years in the desert, they say. Mine feels as thin as water tonight.
Below me is one of just a few trees that survived the Aspen Fire, on this part of the Red Ridge. Sure, behind me are other surviving Ponderosa pines, but the jury is still out on them, many burned over half their bodies, with just a few branchs of green left. And only a few minutes ago, I visited the Three Surrender trees, all three dead, one having now fallen over, leaving another gap in the forest. This part of Red Ridge was nuked in the Aspen Fire a year and a half ago, and it's still a wasteland. The new snow covers some of the mountain's scars, yet at the same time, the contrast of black trees and white snow makes the devastation even more dramatic. Add to that, years of my own personal memories, and my heart still hurts like hell. Each visit to the Red Ridge just further confirms that the place that I've loved for a long time is gone forever, replaced by something new and horrible.
Earlier tonight, walking up the Red Ridge trail from the Mt. Lemmon highway through an area that has been clear cut since the fire, I barely recognized the place. I used my flashlight on the way here to this point of rock, not because I couldn't see the trail for the full moon is high and bright. I used the flash because I couldn't see the holes in the trail, left by erosion and fallen rock. As I hiked through the waist-high thorn bushes that didn't exist before the fire, I decided then and there, it would be a while before I come back up here again. It's just too painful, like watching a close friend die a slow death from a bad cancer.
But right now, it's not too bad. An old Ponderosa pine below me, that has been gnarled by the wind over the years, weathered the fire and is alive and doing fine. Wasn't even singed in the fire. Its perch on a steep outcropping of rock probably saved it. That and a great deal of luck and serendipity I suppose. Whatever the reason, it's good to see an old friend who isn't sick or dead. An old friend who held prayer flags that I strung in his branches, years ago, for another friend. The flags have decayed in the wind and ice and blown away, but the old tree is still here and his healthy existence makes me very happy.
They say that everything changes and that spiritual health comes from letting go of things and not hanging on, but in this place, it's so good to see a tree that is roughly same as when I first met him, twenty years ago. He's older, a little taller, a bit thicker in the truck, but here.
And tonight, a glowing circle of light graces the granite rock cliff this tree clings to.
My Rollei is off to the right and down a ways, shutter open, soaking up the light of the hoop on the rock, the shadows of the trees and the full moon light on the white forest snow. I'm standing here, twenty feet above the hoop, having a smoke and taking it all in.
Then I notice something or rather the absence of something.
I feel the presence of no animals whatsoever.
When I'm in the forest or the desert at night, I can sense animals around. They aren't making any noises and most are asleep, but I can feel them. Birds, squirrels, coyotes, deer, lion. But nothing tonight. No hawk asleep overhead in a branch. No deer resting in the needles. No hunting owl flying from tree to tree. No mountain lion cuddled up under a cliff face. Nothing.
I'm the only animal here.
And I feel very lonely.
I carefully walk through the snow to my camera, close the shutter and prepare for another exposure, when I think of the animals that have stood on the rock where my hoop shines now.
Blue Jays for sure. A number of squirrels, you bet. Maybe even a mountain lion or two over the years.
I close my eyes again and feel the lack of animals around me once more, and pray for their return to the Red Ridge.
It'll be years I suppose, but they will come back. Someday.
I open the shutter and walk away from the camera, back to the rocks above. I'll let it expose for a few minutes before I make the prayer tower.
It's the night before Thanksgiving. Perhaps some prayers of gratitude of what I do have are in order, I think. My health, my friends, my lover Annie, my vision, my successes, my feelings, even my crappy day job, all these things and people and experiences, I am thankful for.
I raise my arms in prayer and speak aloud these things, these people, these prayers. And after a few minutes, I descend down to my Rollei and make a Prayer Tower.
A Prayer Tower for the Lions.
Christmas Haiku #19 © December 2004 Full Moon Forest Snow: Hoop of lights beneath a tree, Lone man prays nearby.