I am a Quaking Aspen

I grew up on the edge of town, in a small housing development, between the
railroad tracks and the factories.  Acreage properties, railroad right of
ways, and empty lots were my wilderness.  Catching toads and snakes in the
irrigation ditches were my wildlife adventures. Disturbed lands reclaiming
their wildness was my love of nature.  I am a quaking aspen growing in
extensive groves in cut over douglas fir by Gibson Jack, one ridge over from
Pocatello, behind Kimport peak.

I am a quaking aspen; not a douglas fir.  I move with the
patterns of the second growth of the Coast Range.  The winds blowing
from the Pacific call me by my name.  The Old Growth of the Cascades
are as alien to me as the extraneous landscape of a distant planet.    The
open meadows and park lands are to me as a home in a storm.  My grandfather
was a douglas fir.  I  am a child of industry.  I feel  the injury of
industry upon the earth  and I am a part of the healing of the planet; those
are the movements of my life.  The weeds that crack through the pavements as
the earth reclaims what was taken without respect is the revolution of the
humanity of the soul of my life.  It is the small places with insects and
grasses and miniature blossoms that clothe me as my own land, as I am part
of that land.  I am a quaking aspen reclaiming the lands logged over or
burned in serial succession; not the climax community of the wisdom of
the ages.  Revolutionary; not the memorial sage.