Beauty in Brutality

These mountains hold secrets. Why wouldn’t they? From the base of the holler to its cresting ridge. They’ve seen things our minds could never comprehend. Singular raw moments uncomplicated by the need for survival. The rules are rigid. Don’t forage—hunt. Don’t eat. Don’t mate? Extinction. The brutality of it all is beautiful. Inasmuch, the beauty of it all is brutal—a young fox nursing her newborn pups. Only to have them succumb to nature's unwavering winter. An innocent bear cub frolics playfully behind its mother. Only to be cannibalized by its father out of fear or fornication. The rules are rigid. Kill or be killed. Perhaps the secrets the mountains hold are not secrets at all. But traditions passed down from animal to animal—generation after generation of savagery immigrating from the foothills to the city streets. We are animals.