Sweet-cicely, Osmorhiza depauperata

       Osmorhiza depauperata, at 9200ft Family: Apiaceae, ((Bluntseed sweet root)), for me this plant is Sweet-cicely. Seeing it come up prolifically in the spring is a sweet good sign- yet like all signs, seems the Lord giveth and taketh away. 
                                      

          I say giveth and taketh because while it was super abundant where I was camping the last three days, battling the crazy wind zipping and whooshing between my ears. Always wondering if my stupid life of sin is going to catch up to me and God is going to zap and crack  me with a dead ponderosa pine snag. It was also a bummer to see so many spruce trees under spiritual attack. I don't know any other term to use. 
       I know its wrong to say trees are under spiritual attack, but I don't know what else to call it. Between the extreme fire ravaged forest and these dying deep spruce it's feeling a lot like, these forests are remnants. 
                                                 

        A lot of times these days I get the feeling I am walking through a tree museum. Looking at the last of the great south west forest. I was happy to see the Sweet Cicely everywhere but still it was like "Damn" these spruce beetles are doing a serious number on the trees. These days I pretty much leave the wild plants alone where they are unless there is a specific plant I am looking for with regards to a specific person.
       These forests are battling and struggling to live. I can feel everything pulling down into the hollows and draws. Like a body in shock pulling all the blood from the extremities towards the core.
The wet meadows and their tiny green zone which feels like an ICU life support area. The hills and slopes are dry bones, desert remnant forests with a little Senecio, otherwise they feel like they are waiting to make smoke in the next catastrophic wildfire show.
         It's a sad strange feeling walking through a dying south west forest. It's like visiting the steel towns along the Monogahela river, or visiting an old lover dying from uterine cancer, whose former fertile sexual body is now 93 pounds on a 5' 9" frame and ashen grey at 37- dying much too soon. You know it borders on necrophilia to bath Carolyn and caress her for hours in her hospice bed, with the morphine drip, yet that's why you're here, to help her remember the beauty and passion and maybe for an instant to rage. and never go gently into the terrible lie called death.