Photo from Yosemite National Park’s FaceBook page. (Click to see a larger version.)
I was drawn to this photo and the thoughts by Shelton Johnson (below) that accompany it. It was posted today to Yosemite National Park’s FaceBook page.
As nearly as I can recall, I have only been to Yosemite three times. About 6 hours on a foggy winter day in the late 70s or early 80s. About 4 hours on a snowy day, December 30,1990 (the park’s 100th anniversary year). A finally, a whole summer day, July 14, 2006. That’s not nearly enough time, but enough to know that Yosemite is one of the most wonderful places on the planet. Small wonder that John Muir, Ansel Adams, and Galen Rowell fell in love with Yosemite. Spending a year there as an artist in residence would be akin to being in heaven.
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“Aware that this day will never come again, a mule deer grazes in the Soda Springs, head low, kissing the earth in the deepening shadows of the lodgepole pine forest,
thanking the damp mineral ground for its loyalty, for always being there when it was needed.
The meadow never failed to pull the deer down from the sky
whenever it leapt away from mountain lion or bear.
The higher it leapt, the deeper the pull of earth.
The embrace of mountains was such that now it was a joy to be still
while the tree tops smoldered with the fire at day’s end,
but the deer shook within for her bones drew all that’s mysterious and wild
in this world from an underground spring.
Her hooves drank deep the muck that set the blood on fire.
She was always, always on the edge of jumping out of her hide
into flight.
All that grounded her in this moment,
the only power that kept her out of the sky was that long kiss
in the twilight.â€
-Ranger Shelton Johnson
Links
Shelton Johnson at Wikipedia. Johnson was in Ken Burns documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea