Greer

On fire again

You probably don't know, never heard of Greer.

Its a place mostly overlooked

The soil once held giant, ancient trees.

Greer is on fire.

I guess I'm writing this because my heart was stolen by the White Mountains, the Mogollon Rim. I used to love just being, wandering across forgotten deer trails, the sweet scent of Ponderosa sap in the air.

The US deFORESTation service at work, as usual, murdering trees. Then they bring in their overpayed corporate buddies who hire firefighters that risk their lives to stop what the government started in the first place.

In the White Mountains the sense was always, forever, a place of unknown history. People regularly came through there who couldn't be trusted, hoping to dodge their well earned reputations, to take advantage of the innocence of the people who lived there, quietly.

It was outside money, mostly, that called to the endless mystery of the living that their time was receding, almost over beneathe the nanoparticles in the paint and the sky, just about a series of numbers on a corporate contractor's spread sheet.

I met her once, she lived alone in Strawberry. She knew who Maurice Strong was. Like me she liked to wander, just to be and breathe beneathe the trees. She was already starting to look like the mountains. Her blonde hair was natural, blending into the yellow grasses. Her blue eyes had seen too much, yet they carried a strength of purpose. I used to tell her that bad men always flocked to the Mogollon country, and she should be prepared. Hell, I could be one. I took off my black hat and shook it at her.

Black hat, bad man.

She just regarded me cooly with a secret smile and showed me her Glock 19.

Yeah, I left a part of myself in the rim country. I never wanted to. To be honest, the land felt too good, too natural, like a cave to fall into and never emerge from again.

Greer is on fire. They've learned, the deforestation service, and their corporate partners, that they can get away with murder, with burning towns and even cities, and so they do.

It just occurred to me how little time I spent at the lakes. I way preferred the intermittent streams. I never really intended to write this, or for it to be a eulogy.

Greer is on fire, it haunts me, literally takes over my dreams. Maybe you don't know what it is to dream of fire. If not, count yourself lucky.

Fire isn't evil, but it is powerful. It has its own way of being. This society is the burning society, it must burn something to do anything. So now it has figured out how to burn communities, forests, entire cities, and shrug off any blame.

The latest bad man has blown into the White Mountains. They are white with snow come the winter. Yet now its almost summer, and the heavy wind is dry, a dry moan that bursts open the door with government uniforms carrying the promise of their burning.

The world chasing money against the world of the living.

I learned about the Silence.

When I was wandering through the shadows of the forest

It was always there, latent, waiting.

I experienced the silence.

When the cold snow piled deep and solid

Unlike the highway that carried metallic beasts

Screaming and roaring

Burning their fuel.

Fast, yet never fast enough.

I lived the real time.

With the cycling of the luminaries defining the heavens.

I will always remeber the Rim.

Greer, on fire, again.