God and Nature ​                                                                                 Spring 2021

The Manis Mastodon of Sequim*, WA
​

By Eugene E. Lemcio

​The tiny village sits along the blunt peninsula
that forms the southern border
of the Juan de Fuca Strait.
This unimposing hamlet tempts
the jaded, uninformed to ask,
“What good can come from Sequim?”
 
Behind it lies a Ridge that’s oddly labeled “Hurricane”.
Below, the port named after angels
harbors ships that sail for western Canada.
It is the kind of spot where tourists dared not blink
for fear that they might miss the sign
that read, “Turn Left to See the Manis Mastodon”.
 
The Manis barn (then painted regulation red)
attempted to ensure security for first—clear—proof
that these gigantic, prehistoric pachyderms
had occupied the earth with humankind.
 
A shelf enclosed in simple glass displayed
what seemed to be a tusk. But no.
A closer look revealed a long, arced rib  
that seized—and held—a hunter’s spear
then broke the blade that had been thrust
into the creature’s side.
 
What was the destiny
that followed this uneven fight?
Encrusted bone around the needle tip
suggests that “he’d” escaped a mortal wound
by shrugging off the inconvenient shrapnel that
had likely made him only fitter to survive
and see a ripe old age.
 
Where lay his mate among the skeletal debris?
Had she succumbed to wounds
received throughout the raid?
Might she have been assigned to stand
between attackers and the herd--
defending young—one life exchanged for many lives?
If so, the beast had saved, but could not save itself.
 
Then were these massive bodies set upon
by butchers to de-skin, de-flesh, and toss among
discarded carcasses of bison, elk, and antelope--
for sun to bleach, for wind and tide to dig
a vast, but shallow earthen grave?
 
What of the man
who’d hurled that lance--
whom we call “homo sapiens”?
Did he return a hero to his tribe,
desired by virgin girls,
his deed engraved upon a totem pole
by ancestors of Michelangelo
and sung by bards in myth
as firstborn of his race
to fell a monster ravaging their land?
 
In our own day, a patient archaeologist,
with nimble fingers, open mind, and tender heart 
untombed the fragile clues of what had gone before
and heralded the news to all the world.
 
“What good can come from Sequim?”

*(pronounced “Skwim”) from a visit in the early 1980s

Eugene Lemcio, Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific University, taught there for thirty-six years. He earned an M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary and a doctorate from Cambridge University (Trinity College). Gene began his academic career at Houghton College with a B.S. in zoology (and a minor in chemistry).

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