This poem attempts to describe an experience a friend had with a ghost while out backpacking on the Lost Coast Trail, north of Fort Bragg, California. After researching the old logging town of Wheeler Camp, the place where her experience began, and backpacking to the site myself a couple of times, I got the feeling the ghost she encountered was a child’s ghost.
Using what she told me, what I sensed about the area myself, and what I gleaned from my research into the history of Wheeler Camp, I managed the following.
The Phantom of Wheeler Camp
I
The Child’s Life
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder,
Hauled to the clanging mill that pays for his evening meals;
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.
Each morning rugged hands awake from slumber,
Heeding a daily call to climb the canyons and kill;
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder.
How can a child teach his father wonder,
Who razes pillared hills, destroying enchanted halls?
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.
The sentient forest beings fade in number;
Heavy machines befoul and ravenous saws defile;
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder.
He dreams of ending all this senseless plunder;
His hope decays and fails, for no-one cares what he feels;
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.
His world is carted off as squares of lumber;
Helpless, alone, reviled, he grieves to no avail—
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder;
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.
II
The Child’s Ghost
Suddenly all is dim; he wanders in psychic dream
Among the barren hills of senseless slaughter,
Broken by savage harm, now one with his blighted home.
In death he holds a grief which never falters,
Transformed into a sprite that floats where the saplings sprout
Among the barren hills of senseless slaughter.
The loss has crushed his heart till nothing can soothe the hurt,
For every old-growth tree was slain for profit,
Transformed into a sprite that floats where the saplings sprout.
Two thousand years of forest-song, melodic,
Vanished amid the moist and constantly shifting mist,
For every old-growth tree was slain for profit.
Visitors sense his ghost, a subtle and somber guest,
An apparition vaguely seen then faded,
Vanished amid the moist and constantly shifting mist.
His anguish grew as all he loved fell wasted;
Suddenly all is dim; he wanders in psychic dream,
An apparition vaguely seen then faded,
Broken by savage harm, now one with his blighted home.
III
Decades Later
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest;
Alders emerge from sleep and conifers climb the slopes,
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.
A gentle woman dreams in the canyon shadows dim;
Her heart is touched by something lost in torment,
And shaken by the gleam, her spirit succumbs to gloom.
She wakes and walks beneath the new-growth foliage
With heavy-hearted step on trails where, defined and steep,
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest.
Dismay beyond her own fell just for moments
And brushed her troubled mind with losses forever mourned;
Her heart is touched by something lost in torment.
Her vision blurs with feelings strangely foreign,
A pain she can’t escape that distorts her mental scope,
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.
A grieving spirit groaned within the molested ground,
Responding to the aura of her presence,
And brushed her troubled mind with losses forever mourned.
She stumbles home—her limbs grow weak and torpid—
Hardly able to cope where, as the semesters creep,
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest.
The very heart of nature stands attendance;
Coyotes hold their poise and ravens serenely pose,
Responding to the aura of her presence.
So few would guess the ancients all were corded
To see these living shapes in place of their eldership
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.
The air around her sighs the whispering subtle soughs
Of sorrows that a broken shade remembers;
Coyotes hold their poise and ravens serenely pose.
Her thoughts are framed with images emotive,
An endless foggy drip and trails where the branches droop;
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest,
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.
Long after mists have cooled the campfire embers,
A gentle woman dreams in the canyon shadows dim
Of sorrows that a broken shade remembers,
And shaken by the gleam, her spirit succumbs to gloom.
There are three poetic forms used here: Parts I and II are my 18th villanelle and terzanelle, respectively; part III is my 1st hybridanelle.
