Asphalt, steaming screams swear words
The offensive smell of pavement post downpour
I think I’d like life better if it rhymed
The chatter and clatter mad hatters me
Sleepless and hopeless with Romans
And their online roads and aqueducts
They slither and snake but there is no more wild in the west
Automated scarecrows with AR-15’s stand guard
O’er amber waves of grain
Eyes open for outlaws and injuns
Cattle ranching of the future
Feeding the world one cubic meter of methane at a time

No picket fences. No hunting license. He has no culture
To his name. No children nor partner to carry; he’ll love
The forest floor just the same. Chickadees chattered as he muttered his marriage
Vows to the land between his toes. Rich in all but money,
He aims to accomplish what his forefathers could not: Forgive
Himself for human’s toll on nature. Their roads of death.  

For hickory trees and zipping flies only understand death
As biological drivers of fear. He has seen the culture.
Slash and burn, Gnash and chop, mine and take, forgive
And forget the consequences. They manufacture love
On a rainy day to deceive people into funding destruction with the money
From the nature they claim to protect. A push-and-pull marriage.

He set aside his business coat as he set foot into the forest, divorcing the marriage
Of care and corporation. His only hope is that the rabbit cannot smell death
Still leaking from his pores like toxic radiation nor the stench of money
Recklessly thrown to culling the land mere miles away. More culture
Here than in thousands of skylines. More compassion among animals than any “love”
A vest-and-tie, bright-eyed smile grants in marketing. Corporate does not forgive.

He climbs atop the highest canopy and calms his quaking arms. If no one can forgive
His erratic exercise routine, the breeze can. All is still. The marriage
Has begun to provide. The priest above will join them in the morning; he’ll prove his love.
Tomorrow, the men with machines and sticks of death
Will come barreling through the sanctuary, claiming from destruction comes culture
And resources, but behind their faces of concern is always money, money, money.

From the first rabbit he slaughtered to the devastating loss of money
He incurred for not staying silent, the corruption he witnessed set a fire he would not forgive
His heart for feeding. The disillusionment he kept spread faster than a bacterial culture
Under perfect conditions. The merriment in progress was null, the marriage
Bands thrown into polluted rivers. He would slow the unnatural cycle of death,
One by one rooted tree. Though he does not believe it is enough, it is love.

His back aches. His eyes open with a start. His air tastes acrid. His love
Has died and fear wrests his heart. Trees around him scream for aid. All the money
In the world could not replace the thousands of years of peace they spoil with death.
He yells from his tower. A straggler rabbit screws its head to see him. Maybe it saw to forgive
Him after all this time. Rivers from his eyes and gold buried deep inside, the marriage
Between man and Mother Nature could exist. Human’s ruination isn’t nature. It is culture.

They ask him for the love of God, what is he doing up there. He smiles. I can forgive
The contractor for his need of money, but not those whose wants require a marriage
Between negligence and my planet’s death. He pleads. They stare. As is the culture.

I listened to an Eagle
speak through a body
that personified the land
he hunted over;
a body stressed, defensive—
fragile.
In his eyes I saw Reorder,
the burning furnaces
of Universal energy,
the power of stars,
and a coming heat.

Once, the wild forest
Treaded beneath,
Its vestigial remains laid under my feet,
In pockets of youth that grew out of the ashes.

Once, the wild forest –
I dreamt of it, sleepwalking, moontalking,
I dreamt of walking down that forest floor,
down mountain slopes and crowded ravines,
and curving around the canopy as the birds do.

Oh, the wild forest,
How you sleep and slumber,
How you call to me with all your moss and your green.
Your spiders spinning webs, the old sequoia tree
Who has seen more than I will in a thousand lives.

Once, the wild forest,
Treaded beneath my feet.
How that ancient spirit slumbers,
How the forest sleeps.

The tide rises up the sand
And it falls back
It seems as if it's unmanned
Counterattack

The tide is inching up now
Then slides away
It climbs up the sand somehow
Never at stay

You see just the constant motion
Never at a rest
The clock of the open ocean
The pull then the crest

It looks the same, yet different
The push the the pull
The flat line of the gradient
A part of the whole

Years later, the water's now higher
Near the steps of your house
Yet you think the sand must be drier
Nothing is under dowse

You a small wall up infront the place
So the tide never hits
Right now, everything's at little haste
Danger, it's at a quits

Later you notice the house is flooding
The tide rolls up and down there
Because the wall could stop only nothing
The house is just sea and air

You think it is smart to move up the hill
"Though the tide climbs, it will fall"
"The tide will not stay up, but the house will"
"When it rises, it will crawl"

Later you here the spinning of the cycle
The water is always around
Now you know it ill never be idle
It goes up, but does it come down?

You think it can be fixed, something you can do
But two homes are there down under
So you blame society, partially true
But it was also your blunder

Finally, at last, you say you can fix it all
But you took too long, it is too late
Because the ocean is rising with little fall
That’s why you hate the one who is late

Because only the mountain is left standing dry
All life is certainly out of whack
You must recede to the only place that is high
The tide rises up the sand and doesn't fall back

imagine the trees lined up long and kissing the sky from their big tree families
there in the trees sits a baby bird while he waits for his worm when his father arrives
and the worm wiggles while he remembers gracing the palm of a girl who pulled him out of a watery demise and the rain clouds above kissed the sweet girl’s head
the clouds carried mighty and strong strength to the living and remembrance of the dead
as it poured into rivers and streams and oceans and lakes, the people danced around their source of joyous bounty before they ate


the people loved their bountiful land and learned the language of the trees
so they could share each other’s needs and meet each other in harmony
the people tugged, and their land pulled, a balancing act perfected out of love and serenity

the animals they nurtured and protected with great care so that their circle of peace would exist without need for repair
because the people loved the animals and the animals loved them so they built a great big kingdom for them all to live

Environmental advice
from a re-purposed hag:
Stop driving cars.
Use a re-usable bag.
Cook dinner at home.
Adopt children, not pets.
Don't use plastic cups.
Don't eat tuna caught with nets.
Don't toss out food--
it becomes methane gas.
Stop shopping for clothes;
give consumerism a pass.
Wear natural fabrics.
Turn off extra lights.
Use solar cells.
Live the days and sleep the nights.

We live in troubled times.
The Amazon is burning and yet
no one will answer for these crimes.
Such is the twenty-first century
when the polar ice caps are melting
and there's no one to answer their plea.