WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

Sahalie Falls some sixty miles or so up highway 126 heading sort of northeast from Springfield. Drops over an ancient basalt lava flow. Cool, misty, mossy, ferny. The way side is right off the highway. There's a trail runs along the river a fairly easy walk. Darn. I miss that part of Oregon. 

My part of Eastern Oregon has the fancy description of arid continental climate. Cold winters. Hot dry summers.  In a good year around here the average rainfall is about ten inches. US average is thirty nine inches. Phoenix, Arizona is slightly drier with just over nine inches. 

It was 117 degrees in Hermiston yesterday. It was cooler in Arizona believe it or not. The weather gurus claim the "heat dome" is a once centuries phenomenon. I hope so. It's supposed to get down to 102 or so by the end of the week. That's still hotter than the average that runs around the high eighties to low nineties. And it is dry. Bone dry. I've got FB friends in this part of the country literally begging folks to stick to the fire works put on by the casinos and the city. Anyway I thank heaven the worst of the hot spell is over. This time. And pray it isn't a taste of things to come. I  wrote the rest of this entry awhile back. The song was written back when some rivers literally caught fire. 

And Hermiston isn't too far from one of the worst superfund sites in the country. Hanford. Courtesy of our own government. How can we expect private companies to clean up their messes when the elected hired help can't clean up the messes they create.

WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Whose river was this, you say it ran freely.
Blue was its color.
And I've seen blue in some pictures.
And I'd love to have been there.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose grey sky was this?

 Or was it a blue one?
You say there were breezes.
I've heard records of breezes.
And I'd love to have felt one.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.

Words and music by Tom Paxton. Covered by John Denver about 1970

I don’t really know what to make of these lyrics. But listening John Denver sing this song is enough to break your heart.  

Is this a nightmare of now or the far future? God/dess knows we have enough nightmares in our own time. The dates suggest the song is pre EPA era. And here we have a concerted effort to gut the EPA. Supposedly this will create jobs. I’ve even run across comments that take the stand that given a choice between jobs and the environment, the environment comes dead last. And you can’t get through to them. If we destroy the environment the jobs aren’t going to matter very much.

So, what is the world in this song? Is it the remains a jungle in Viet Nam after Agent Orange was dropped on it? The remains of an equatorial rainforest? The spreading of the Sahara? The wrecked neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn?

Or is this a nightmare out of the finale of Soylant Green or the novel Stand on Zanzibar? A future when flowers, trees, blue skies, free flowing rivers, unspoiled oceans, and even birds are remembered in pictures and folk tale? Something your doddering great grandparents tell stories about? “I’ve seen pictures of flowers. And I’d loved to have smelled one.”

Goddess, may it never come to that.