Sullen, steaming, stifling, just one of
those days the weatherman is loathe
to take responsibility for, which nature
speedily takes ownership of, seeming to
boast: Think this is hot? Wait for tomorrow,
and we do, we do, but of course hardly with
bated breath, albeit breathlessly. An
intolerable succession of heat-struck days
has left us anxious for weather relief.
Whereas those reporting atmospheric
conditions merely note, nature has an
assortment of teasing, tantalizing,
tormenting tricks at her disposal.
Chief among them, the imposition of
accelerated change. Seeking the comfort
of deep-forest shade by a cooling breeze-
rippled brook, the wooded canopy our
shelter from the wickedly searing sun,
we suddenly become vulnerable.
That gentle breeze at her behest
transforms monstrously to a ferocious
wind bending the masts of tall trees,
cracking off dry-heated limbs, ushering
in an instant deluge of large and
piercing rain drops assembled as a flood
from the suddenly-dark-ocean of the
sky, deluging the utterly deluded.
No question, the heat-crazed sun
and high humidity qualify this as
one scorcher of a day. As it happens
this year, one such heat-box
summer of a dog-day's after another.
The clear water endlessly trickling
deep within the forested ravine
has become lackadaisical, winking
its way down the almost-parched
watercourse heavy with clay.
Goldenrod nods its deep yellow
plumes in an overheated wisp of
wind. Wild raspberries ripen into
fiery-red, sour-mouthed berries,
small and mean. Queen Anne's lace
flaunts its dry, aristocratic daintiness.
Cowvetch, asters, purple loosestrife
and brilliant sunflowers colour
the heat-struck forest understory.
A nuthatch nonchalantly vacates
its perch on a hoary old hemlock,
while a downy woodpecker bravely
assaults the trunk of a spruce;
nothing out of the ordinary on this
energy-sapping day where the furred
wildlife still scurry frantically about,
searching mysterious advantage.
There were two kits sighted
fortuitously by an alert hiker,
splashing in the urban forest creek,
unconcerned with the interest of a
human. Where the young can be found
the adults will be concerned with
practicalities of existence.
Wildlife co-exists where it is
feasible in the near presence of
human settlement, and urban forests
represent their precinct, more than
it does a city dweller's. The creek
running through the damp, wooded
ravine is nature's own storm catchment
where the beavers, scoping for a new
home, assessed plentiful stands of
poplar, the lay of the land, and the
assurance of an ongoing water source.
The creek now no longer runs steadily
clear and modest in volume during
these summer days. It has become
bloated in a succession of stagnant
pools of still, standing water,
mud-filled and detritus-laden.
The industrious beavers have
demonstrated the nature of their
architectural environmental skills
and sensibilities. Theirs, proudly now
the turgid creek with its steadily rising
surface and collapsing banks; their
element, their possession by
right of natural conquest.
The sky is sullen, lowering with
dark clouds captured by a succession
of jagged, bare peaks reluctant to
release them as though capriciously
finding comfort and purpose in their
brooding presence, finally agreeing to
their drifting departure only when they
have released their burden of rain
as thunder claps across the sky,
trapping all below in a monsoon of
wind, pelting bolts of lightning,
bellicose threats as clouds collapse.
The alpine flora sponge the pounding
rain, the silenced thrushes await
cessation, huddling below the tree line,
while massive boulders, balanced on
the edge of the stony slopes, long
separated from the spiny cliffs and
mountain colls turn darkly sinister,
hued thus by the rain, their tough
clinging lichens flourishing on their
drenched perches. Not a single
creature stirs in the storm's fury.
In the humid heat before dawn a
military, wide-bodied, heavy-lift aircraft,
a Hercules, bullied its way through the
sky, its low rumble sending waves of
sound through bedroom windows whose
occupants recognized the cause of their
awakening yet thought longingly of an
atmosphere thick with heavy rain,
thunder and lightning coursing the
heavens, nature's prerogative, not
humankind's primitive presumption
of hostilities and technology fueling
an ever-ready war machine...
Here, yellow birch is king. Among them hemlock and spruce, hung with mosses, lichen-lined bark scrubbed by mountain ice and snowstorms, winds that ravage, leaving the bleak vacuums of blowdowns. There is an air of mystery and gloom in the ancient forest, on the mountainside, along the rock and boulder-strewn brook. Its voice rising and diminishing, edging from a pounding basso profundoto a light, fairy-tinkle as the clear, cold mountain melt-water races downhill, spouting generous spray, creating the atmosphere, damp and boggy-rich with aeons of nutrients hosting bright green lacy bracken, dogwood, wood sorrel, delicately lovely orchids and lilies. Robins and Northern thrushes embroider the air with their sweet, piercing calls. Shafts of sunlight blaze from a cloud-gathering sky observed through the forest canopy upon the remnants
of a shattered white birch on the forest floor.
The ancient mountain valley site
enveloped by hemlock, spruce, pine,
oak and yellow birch, no longer virgin,
but of venerable height and girth,
thrives as a moss-laden, lichen-rich
haven for wildlife and the insect world,
all finding comfort in the humid
atmosphere of cool spray showering
from the icy-mountain spill through
its time-worn raceway of granite.
The thundering roar of the mountain
stream shattering the song birds'
melodies, the lacy filaments of sweet
piercing song rent through by the
rough, deep bass of the powerful watery
thrust, rampaging declaration of
strength capable of defeating the
geological integrity of permeable rock.
Curtains of glass-clear water spread
over the jutting rocky peninsulas under
the fierce, frothing gathering of the
stream's intense, unstoppable flow.
This place, with its primal elements of
gnarled tree trunks and interlocking roots,
glowing green ferns, the orb of the fiery sun
set high in the wide blue sky, the indomitable
march of mountains, gneiss-grey summits,
tumbled-sided rock slides, meltwater coursing
icy descent, presents as a divine creation
of perfect majestic beauty and might.
