Wilderness

        for Kathleen Raine
        and all who love the earth
 

Our land isn't totally swept of song
but I can see that it will be, Kathleen.
Daily it is sheared and scraped so
increasingly bare that soon
there will be nothing for us here
but to don binoculars and boots
and escape to lowland or ravine
too wet or steep to go to,
too wet or steep to be yet destroyed
where the earth could slide or swallow
but to go anyway lured and enchanted by what might be there:
Once common, mysterious things
fragile survivors that cling to shear rock
or hide in deep shadow
shapes and patterns so varied they amaze.
No, we have not yet razed everything!
Beyond vast suburban runways,
past garden, park, and farm field, there lie
tiny earth pockets, remnants of what was
whose inhabitants dance and sing
of former more intricate worlds,
living testimony to nature's richness,
shining reminders of what we will not keep
in forgetfulness and sleep.

Posted

No trespassing.  Keep out.  Private Property.

No hunting, fishing or trespassing

for any purpose whatsoever.

Well, I guess that covers me

leaning into the field looking for butterflies.

Look, I reason, to no one there,

There are so few places I can go to find them. 

Why can’t you say, No hunting or trespassing

unless you are just looking for butterflies?

On my bicycle,

I stop at every ditch and clump of weeds

as if I have found a gold mine.

To myself I rehearse a response to,

“What do you think you are doing here?”

if I were to venture past that sign.

“I’m looking for butterflies and it’s hard. 

Every inch of land that is not gobbled up

and spit out bland and weedless is posted.

If it is not asphalt, concrete or marigolds,

it is posted.”

“I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I looked for butterflies”

is my final reasoned response.

I tell myself I am a pretty woman

An angry landowner might soften at the sight of me

No matter

I stand at the edge of the field

straining at the tight leash of civilization.

To be safe

A note in my mailbox today,
crumpled, waterlogged,
saying, “Tonight mosquito poison
will rain down on your town.
Stay indoors. Close windows.
Turn off air conditioner.
Do not worry.  It is perfectly safe.”
 

I think of this afternoon's butterflies
found in smallest last wild place
here in my town.
Is there a note in their mailbox?
“Between 7 and 9 pm July 6, do not breathe.
Hide under leaf. 

Do not drink from flowers!
 

Hummingbird on nest –
where is her mailbox?
Honestly,
who would exchange an old woman or even
the small sick child for several hundred birds,
insects, fish, or frogs cavorting,
safely, all over town?
 

Migrating

                   Warblers in spring wash

Over hedgerow, park, and wood lot

In slow bright waves

High-pitched songs and trills

Pealing through trees.

In fall they flicker

As light through swaying leaves,

Now whispering thin chips and seets,

Now darting through hawthorn,

Now gone.