Adeisidaimonia. I doubt the word exists.
No god, no religion, no superstition, or,
Superstition without god or belief? Here,
At the end of a road into the ponderosas,
A dozen years after the assassination
Of President Lincoln at the end of America’s
First industrialized war, Mormon settlers,
Who thought of themselves as both saints
Of Earth’s last days before the Judgment
And as pioneers of a new and improved
State, constructed the first steam-powered
Sawmill in southern Utah, then still Deseret,
A forty-horsepower behemoth that ate
Its way through all the timber the wagons
Could haul down to the desert for the homes
Of the growing St. George colony in Dixie.
All causes should be considered romantic
Because all causes are lost, even the ones
That won. The pine forest on these slopes
Has recovered, although it is a young wood
Now, and threatened by warming and drought.
The sawmill is gone, just a wooden historic sign
Beside a hiking trail carpeted in needles
And edged with melting late-spring snow.
The saints still fill in the neighborhood. Summer
Days, post-industrial automobiles stream up
From the desert to escape the heat. A sign
Instructs, “No shooting guns or arrows.” Here,
At the end of the paved road into ponderosas,
Plenty of faith and superstition persists,
And has its unintended consequences
On the scenery. Rules and beliefs litter
The slopes in the form of rules and litter.
The monster we once imagined protected
The woods, haunted the pines and the cedars,
Persists as well, however. The monster is
A living world without belief. It has to feed.
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