Gordon  Stace-Smith

Creston, B.C.  1953

Father

Grandfather

Great-Grandfather

Great-Great-Grandfather

Time, Men and Moths

From where the slow, deep Kootenay joins the Lake
A little mountain prairie  stretches out.
So broad and beautiful that it could make
A thousand homes — with the attendant shout
Of the ignoble mob, brawling about
Their acres — save that the mild, melting snow
Rolls from the hills each Spring and floods the flats below.

But this is a large boon Nature provides
To hold her virgin loveliness untamed;
A wilderness of mountains on all sides.
Unnumbered, dim, and often, too, unnamed 
As when the first fire of the pioneer flamed
Into the dusk. And changes barely mar
The meadow, where the many river-channels are.
Yet on the foothill flares the human stain.
For there a little village has been born —
Prosaic, commonplace and very vain.
That does itself with snobbery adorn;
There dark Hypocrisy on Sunday morn
Crawls into Church; while gossips, steeped in pride.
Sneer at the hapless maid should she once step aside.
But in the woods the shy birds still rejoice;
And calm and quiet is the river’s shore.
Though changes come, even by Nature’s choice:
The Redman’s buckskin teepee is no more.
And all his noble race is nearly o’er!
And gone the grazing herds of caribou
That, not so long ago, these grassy meadows knew.

Along the margins of the river rose
A narrow forest of tall cottonwoods;
The work of centuries, and the repose
Of creatures numberless in Summer’s moods;
And overhead a thousand interludes
Of varied nesting birds among the leaves.
With the low undertone the tireless river heaves.

Then suddenly a little moth appeared;
The tent leaf caterpillar found the place!
And soon the ancient forest’s grandeur seared.
And did each leaf, from every branch, deface —
Then death and desolation came apace:
We watched the whole enactment to the last,
Till, through the leafless boughs, the Summer breezes passed.

It chanced that, when again the winds were warm
And one whole year had numbered all its days.
An eager fire, born of a thunderstorm,
The ruined forest swept in sudden blaze,
That lingered long into the Autumn’s haze:
We watched it, every night, like flames of gold,
Leaping from tree to tree and craving to enfold.

Out of the ashes, hiding all deform,
A field of honeyed fireweed blooms and blows;
A flower of Hope, like rainbow after storm.
Where most there is Despair there best it grows.
Bringing a gladness everywhere it goes:
A sense of trust that the great Maker planned
All the unnumbered ways we cannot understand.