I hiked at Oak Mountain State Park last Thursday with a friend and my sister. I had carefully planned which trail to take, finding a new-to-me one that was for multi-use—hikers, mountain bikers, and trail runners all have the run of it. I normally don’t like to hike with mountain bikers. They sneak up on me from behind too fast, and it scares the bejeebers out of me. Anyway, since it was a weekday, overcast and chilly, I reasoned that the trail would be sparsely populated.
Turns out there was another reason this trail did not have many people on it.
I had heard that the park had recently instigated a controlled burn in some areas, and sure enough, it was the area in which my selected trail lay. As soon as the three of us stepped down from the parking lot and onto the trail, it was extremely noticeable. The ground was black, and the odor or campfires hung in the air. We kept walking, hoping that the scene would return to a normal early spring one around the next bend in the trail. We discussed turning back and finding another trail, but decided this would be interesting, and maybe we would walk out of it at some point. We eventually did hike into a spring woodland, but it was soon time to turn around and hike back through the torched land.
Early on the trail, we came across a photographer. I made some crack about there not really being anything of interest to photograph in this burnt landscape. What could he possibly be shooting? He looked into the forest and said, “I thought the contrast of the tan-colored beech leaves against the blackened ground was interesting.”
That stopped me in my tracks. His eyes were seeing a kind of beauty where all I saw was destruction. So we stopped and really looked. Yes, the contrast between the dead leaves still clinging to the beech trees and the blackened earth as it sloped down a hill was starkly beautiful. But looking more closely, we could see that there was a small stream flowing at the bottom of the hill, its banks lined with moss. It WAS beautiful, eerily so.
Once we started paying attention, we noticed that the burn truly was controlled. The trees were all perfectly intact. Only the forest floor was scorched. As we walked, we also saw some areas that were still smoldering, sending up lazy flags of smoke from the remains of a log, now coals. There were even flames licking a pile of downed trees. And of course, the smell of burning wood continued to fill our nostrils and probably permeated our clothing.
These controlled burns, especially in pine forests, are necessary for the health of the forest. I’m looking forward to stopping by this area throughout the next year to see how the forest floor comes back to life. What will be the first green thing to push its way through the charred earth?
This unnatural landscape has haunted me. There was an unexpected beauty in its otherworldliness, and it brought up a number of questions: Can we see beauty in difficult times? Can there be any wonder in pain or suffering or grief? If we stop and really look into the stark barrenness of grief, can we also see there was once love there? Is there beauty in the contrast between the tears of the present and the laughter in our memories?
And then I remember. The life-giving stream still runs its course despite our singed souls.