An ordinary autumn day in Appalachia
This is the nursery that reseeded the North American continent after the last Ice Age. There are few other places on Earth as biologically diverse as our Appalachian hardwood forest. Like all ecosystems, its intricate balance can be thrown off kilter by human action, but it can also be amazingly resiliant if left undisturbed. Someone recently asked why some of us stay and fight so hard what often seems to be a losing battle against wholesale degradation of the land, air and water. One of the answers is right before your eyes.
I don’t know who took this photo. I found it on Jim Shaver’s Facebook photo page, but I think it may be another Troy Lilly shot, of ForestWander.com fame.
Advertisement
A beautiful photograph. While contemplating this picture one can almost expect to hear the snapping of downed tree branches and see the white blaze of a raised deer tail as it gallops off among the foliage. Or the angry hissing of a peek-a-boo squirrel feeding up a tree as one passes by. Yes, no doubt, these are reasons to stay, and I have done so. Unfortunately, like many other glorious things, their sustenance is so fleeting in nature that it is also possible that they can become the trap that is the undoing of one who struggles to meet their basic needs. When I look back at the “beauty and the beast” of Appalachia, if you will, I find it easy to feel that had I continued to stay, my days of color would have been terribly shortened. That is different from those that sit at a table comfortably laden with the essentials. And it should be considered among the reasons that people go or stay. A longer life can be the best revenge against those who would muck-up ones existance and sometimes you just got to let it go in oder to achieve that. The photographs, after all, are only for the living.