Ode to Wolf Gulch

Hi there.

I’m posting a bit late this week, as my life is in a state of flux. I’ve just returned from spending a week outdoors for a social forestry internship at Siskiyou Permaculture in the Little Applegate Valley, which included plenty of sleeping outside, chopping wood, and discussing systems-thinking and indigenous cosmologies. Soon, I’ll be doing a lot more work-trade land stays like this, albeit in the much warmer climates of Costa Rica.

Part of my intention in traveling is to absorb inspiration from the human and non-human beings I’m staying with and share it as dedicated poetry. The land Siskiyou Permaculture is based in, called Wolf Gulch, offers no shortage of inspiration, and the same goes for its onsite forester and instructor, Hazel Vaarde. They wrote the book on tending the land as people of place, and I’ve written about their mission to restore cultural fire to the western landscape in a more extensive article before.

So for now, I’ll just preface my dedicated poem from this most recent stay at Wolf Gulch by saying:

The landscapes of the American West need fire to stay strong. They need human tending, just like we need natural landscapes to feel our fullest selves. The traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and traditions that have been lost or marginalized along with our continents’ indigenous inhabitants are vast, but there are opportunities to revive them, though not at the frenetic pace our digitalized world has trained us to expect.

Though humble and humorous (calling herself “the pet” of all the other animals living at Wolf Gulch), Hazel is a great model for the wisdom, versatility, and patience working closely in harmony with a piece of land can create. If you, like me, feel despair and grief for the social and political structures that pit humanity’s progress against the health of the natural world, I recommend looking into permaculture as one avenue to reconnect with a healthier culture of regenerative community with humanity and nature. It’s not the whole answer, but it’s certainly been rewarding for me, not to mention challenging by equal measure.

More poems from more lands to come. Thanks for following along.

Enjoy.

Between the Aurora and Tolkien Corner ridges,
There’s a gulch of Manzanita and Buckbrush
Where the Serviceberry and Hazel are coppiced
And the Oregon Grape grows spiked like cactus.

At this mosaic between tectonic plates
Flows the River Little Applegate
Through hills not long before today
Tended by the Dakubetede.

They knew all beings of this place as kin
But got decimated by a Transatlantic pathogen,
Then genocided for the color of their skin,
Their homelands stolen, beliefs declared a sin.

With the valley now on the settlers’ maps
They turned the beavers who held its water into hats.
Seeing only short-term profits to extract,
Each boom and bust made the earth more compact.

Under the thumb of the American empire,
The land starved for the renewal of old friend Fire,
So the goddess White Oak and her allies conspired
How to revive the old seeds before they expired.

So this pocket desert adopted a pet Rat
Who’d forged a wayward path from the Adirondacks.
The four-leggeds who remained deigned to show where it was at;
Their highest command? Bring the Salmon back.

She was hired a permaculture-trained stranger
But over decades evolved into a voodoo ranger
All the animals invited to their babies’ mangers,
Geomancing the land as it reshaped her.

In an age of wildfire, she practiced the lost art of clean burn
And fixed the urine-soaked coals in the garden for carbon return,
By the birds’ word of mouth attracting those eager to learn
How to tend the Earth
when and where it was their turn.

As the collapse loomed, she spread stories like seeds
Of cultures of place that met everyone’s needs —
Maybe converting basements to ferment cheese?
For every impossible question, she could tell you what to read.

She had vision through the law of rampant land abuse
Of Friends who kept treaties and spoke as Spirit moves.
The Gulch and her proved humans could still heal and be of use.
Where most dreaded Poison Oak, she harvested Rhus.

Meanwhile, the settlers’ descendants started welcoming natives back
To develop plans for the land other than those of attack.
When the dams burst, all the Orcas boasted fresh salmon hats,
With special thanks to the knowledge-stashing pack rats.

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