Douglas Fir

Ken Howe

It is easier to apprehend the sacredness（神圣） of the Douglas-Fir in the

mountains, where it is more rare.

Frequently alone in a meadow, surrounded by dropped fir cones（锥形体）,

needles bestrewing its pedestal, its dais.

The Douglas-Fir can eschew（避免） standing in a fire which burns but does

not consume when it interpellates a Charlton Heston or other

zealot（狂热者）. Its aloofness（冷漠，高傲） is its sufficient interpellative act, cleanly

articulate in the thin alpine silence.

The meadow is filled with this silence, Ukrainian dolls of it radiating

from the tree, a choir of bumblebees in the goat-grazed grass:

the tree the omega point of a labyrinth of columbine and saxifrage

encompassing the entire valley and diagramming, in labelled

SI units, each isobar of its beatitude（祝福）.