I keep thinking about the lion
who could pull down a buffalo alone
But when they shot him with a tranquilizer dart
And weighed him in a canvas sling
He weighed only 400 pounds.
Too small to ever win a pride
He ended as a pile of bleaching bone
He died as he hunted – alone.

My friends call it a transition
A new phase of life
The guiltmongers scowl
"Not everyone is as lucky as you"
I sit with drink in hand
And watch the setting sun
The transition from this phase
Is death.

Zero degrees but I was warm in my bed,
Feeling safe and immune to all outside dread.
The wind beat at the windows and near hid the voice,
That chilled my warm bed with its obvious choice:
To hide in my blankets and close off my ears,
To the crying for help now choked off by tears,
Or get in my clothes and go out in the night,
Offer help I can't give, and try to do right?
I'd heard all the stories of people who'd died,
While neighbors around chose to stay home inside,
Where it's warm and it's light and screams aren't heard
If your heart is all closed, and your soul interred.
So I put on my clothes and put off my fear,
And went out in the cold and strained hard to hear.
The night now was silent, the wind alone spoke
Of lonely and frigid and dying for hope.
The cold stung my ears, my breath froze in my hair,
And something remained of that voice of despair.
I could hope the police brought help for her grief,
To me they brought only a shallow relief,
I then turned away and got warm in my home,
And tried to forget the deep chill in my bones,
Forget that the city is full of such fear,
And it's warm and it's light and it's empty in here.

In the slate cold
And grey ice of January
A few song birds
Raise brave voices
Overhead
Flights of crows
Wheel in their thousands
What hope is there
For spring?

I sing no songs of mystic whales
I find no ultimate harmony
In the balance of caribou and wolves
I do not proclaim the salvation
Of man in the wisdom of the wild
The law of nature is a cruel knife
And I know the dark underside of the woods
Is the death by rending of all who
Live in its green halls
Except that one creature who chose
To walk concrete passageways
And live by the hum
Of his own constructs
I do not begrudge my ancestors their choice
To flee the ruthless machinery of nature
And seek a longer life
In a world of straight lines
And unnatural light
Why then does my soul fill up with peace
When I watch the sun set
In a sky brushed with
Cinnamon and gold?

Two heads, chins resting comfortably
On each other’s coils.
Eyes Fixed
Glazed or implacable
Far Away
Entwined tails
Writhe in ecstasy

It must be strange to have five feet,
Which open clamshells nice and neat,
And hunt the shallow ocean floor,
Equipped with these and little more.
One day washed up high and dry,
Underneath the arid sky,
To end your days on some child's shelf.
I think I'd rather be myself.

Cool guys in black slacks
Hot Chicks in stiletto heels
Drinks raised in garden-level bars
And a few couples
With baby carriages

At Camp Sloane,
After waterfront,
They came for Moose.
"Your mother is sick,"
They told him.
"She's going to die."
Moose went home.
We went to campcraft.
My mother died next winter,
After a long illness.

A warbler with his jewel-bright head,

Caught my eye as he sped

From nest to branch to arcing skies,

Above his leafy paradise.

Beneath my feet, I barely saw,

Entrapped by a serpent's jaw,

A dying toad with his last breath,

Fighting against a gruesome death.

If tempted by the warbler's trill,

I was chastened by the reptile's ****.

Weak of claws and teeth and hair,

**** in Eden would I share

The songbird's or the brown toad's fate,

If I should take my nature straight?