rhododendron, after the fire

rhododendron and consciousness

I have known these rosebay rhododendron all my life,

just as I have known the creek along which they huddle,

twenty feet tall and often just as wide:

they are old growth,

a constancy of being themselves

here, snaking along with this stream

since the Ice retreated north

and people first found their way here,

now, change is upon them:

fire leaped, and raced, through the lower woods,

the hungry flames reaching toward the sky

and hurting those green fingers

that work with sun and water the whole year

to capture the energy to hold their sense of self,

to reach for the future in the luxuriance of their flowering

when Earth and Sun find themselves around the Summer Solstice,

when it’s warm, the green fingers reach out like hands

to embrace the sun of the day,

when cold enough they can point straight down

as if to bow before limitation,

now, where the fire hurt them,

the leaves are browning, and hanging down,

where the fire touched them 

they hang limp and maybe lifeless,

Fire damaged rhododendron

Green rhododendron amid the fire damaged neighbors

Both views above in one photo

I wonder at the consciousness within the rhododendron,

how it knows itself,

how it can figure if it’s time to let go,

if there’s a way forward to rebuild, and how,

do its neighbors, spared the devastating loss,

notice the wounded, find any way to help?

most of the flora either slept deep

when the fire passed through,

or reached too high and strong

for the fire to hurt them,

the ash maybe a fertilizer to use in the spring,

right now, though, I feel for the rhododendron,

I wonder at how such life understands and decides,

I honor such effort,

as I have long appreciated the result they live

in the glory of their blossoming.

Healthy rhododendron leaves with snow on them

by Henry H. Walker

December 18, ’16