Guest guest Posted December 10, 2003 Report Share Posted December 10, 2003 Last week my wife and I drove through Cleveland State Park in San Diego County. The two lane highway climbed through a dense pine forest. It was a sunny cool day, and the light filtering through the canopy played happily with the many shadows on the pine needles. It was an enchanting alpine landscape with rocky peeks and forested valleys. Then, without a warning, as we came out of a steep curve, we beheld the heart of darkness. Hell itself had galloped through the landscape. A Holocaust of blackened stubs stretched in all directions as far as we could see. The twisted, black forms sprouting from a sea of ashes seemed an embodiment of pain. And even when I knew these trees felt nothing, these stumps seemed to have soaked all the suffering of the thousands of animals, and the fifteen humans who perished in the fire. It was mind stopping, the scale, the intensity of the destruction- huge boulders had been baked black and cracked, others stood around painted bright red by the chemicals dropped by the firefighting planes. I had been beamed in a second to a faraway desolated planet. And yet the desolation had a somber, terrible beauty, and my mind beheld that beauty in awe and somehow exulted in it. Beauty can not be destroyed. Beauty is immortal. Faced with destruction it only changes attire, and dances through the desolation like a dark angel. New Photos - easier uploading and sharing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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