Forest of Smaug

The legend of Smaug is all mystery and hoarded gold. A beast of enormous size curled round everything it ever gathered, high in the mountains, sleeping on its wealth. Standing above this Oregon forest in the last of the light I could not keep my mind from wandering into it. The same coiled quality is in those trees: something very large, very old, lying quite still, and not obviously asleep. The gold came back at me as the wealth of the place itself. I did not linger as long as I might have.