Forest Heart: a fragile allegory

Ripples of darkness whisper across the open air to touch the old ranger’s waiting eyes. Night has fallen, and amid the measured rush of silence he scans the horizon. From his vantage point above the tree line, the forest spreads out below him like an unconquerable army, quiet and still for centuries, wrapped now in shadow cloaks, silent sentinels holding out for the dawn. But the ranger knows that this army, though vast and splendid, is not unconquerable.
Many are the nights that this same low sky has been filled with a daylight of its own: small patches of hungry sunlight licking up the ranks of the evergreen army. Soon the patches would grow, spreading, brightening, flaming, and the silence would be replaced with the roar and crackle of a force far more powerful than the tall dark soldiers.
The ranger steps down from the rock he has been standing on. No sign of fire tonight. It has been a long time since the last flames were put out on the north side of the forest. Since then, time has slowly slipped by in the form of long days full of rain and waiting. A light drizzle begins to fall as the ranger makes his way along the old forest path. He can feel the soft, dark earth give way beneath his feet, smell the sharp fragrance of pine drifting in and out between the trees as it follows a path of its own. The air is thick with moisture and small noises—the rustling of wildlife in the low foliage accompanied by the soft groans of trees: quiet protests against the weight of the atmosphere resting upon their shoulders. And still the ranger waits.
He has long since given up carrying a torch with him as he patrols in between the tall mountains and down into the rounded “palm” of the valley. His eyes have grown accustomed to the company of the dark, shifting green and black shades of darkness. Long hours of walking the forest floor at night have sharpened his eyes, yet still the darkness holds its secrets, unwilling to tell all even to an old friend. He looks around him as he walks, noting the old shadows, eyes tracing the familiar wrinkles in the underbrush. It is in this way that he can be sure to see the flames when they come; able to see a pinprick of light on the mountain from miles away. But it has been so long, and still he walks the forest floor, echoing the footsteps of so many years.
There is a strange benevolence in the fires, he thinks as he climbs over the crumbling bones of a fallen tree. They come quickly and without warning, flowing through the old forest, coming with a speed born of hunger. Yet as they pass they make way for life, new kinds of vegetation that will reshape the face of the valley. For here, beneath the “elders”, below the towering visages of the long-standing traditions and customs of the old forest, some plants can never grow. The pale flowers that flourish above the tree line could never take root here beneath the towering cedars. Here the sun’s cascading waterfall of light is shed only upon the seemingly immovable canopy of the forest’s tallest citizens. But when the fires come, this world is shifted. Where once only the strongest, most obstinate trees stood, the smaller, more fragile beauty of these valleys slowly spills in.
The ranger comes upon a just such a clearing, the soft moonlight sifting like bright sediment through the misty clouds. He breathes in the open air, quietly watching the slowly dancing carpet of plants sway to an unheard music. After a few moments, he raises his eyes from the dance floor and smiles. Somewhere, far off in the distance, a piece of dawn has pricked the dark heart of the landscape, bleeding light across the miles to the old ranger's softly sparkling eyes.