Pearly Everlasting
Walk a trail down to the lake mountain ash and elderberries red old-growth log bodies blown about, whacked down, tumbled in the new ash wadis. Root-mats tipped up, veiled in tall straight fireweed, fields of prone logs laid by blast in-line north-south down and silvery limbless barkless poles — clear to the alpine ridgetop all you see is toothpicks of dead trees thousands of summers at detritus-cycle rest — hard and dry in the sun — the long life of the down tree yet to go bedded in bushes of pearly everlasting dense white flowers saplings of bushy vibrant silver fir the creek here once was "Harmony Falls" The pristine mountain just a little battered now the smooth dome gone ragged crown the lake was shady yin — now blinding water mirror of the sky remembering days of fir and hemlock— no blame to magma or the mountain & sit on a clean down log at the the lake's edge, the water dark as tea. I had asked Mt. St. Helens for help the day I climbed it, so seems she did The trees all lying flat like, after that big party Siddhartha went to on the night he left the house for good, crowd of young friends whipped from sexy dancing dozens crashed out on the floor angelic boys and girls, sleeping it off. A palace orgy of the gods but what "we" see is "Blast Zone” sprinkled with clustered white flowers "Do not be tricked by human-centered views," says Dogen, And Siddhartha looks it over, slips away—for another forest to really get right down on life and death. If you ask for help it comes. But not in any way you'd ever know thank you Loowit, lawilayt-la, Smoky Ma gracias xiexie grace
