Wilderness
The mind is a wilderness like Bartram’s, razed, cemented over, marked by rows
of parked cars and citizenry stones of those less and less well remembered.
It is Muir’s “glorious forest’ and turpentine factories, and Audubon’s pistol shots.
For mind, like Audubon’s, contains birds of very description, the pretty one on my sill
with painted crest and impossibly red bill and feasting vultures.
The commotion
in so much stillness lured me nearer in my kayak and I waved my paddle high
when the vultures circled back for more of the carcass, scattered and rotten.
Mind possesses and is possessed by bits of history. And Arcturus, and the houselights
in cities, when there is no other light, blazing like stars. And the human
voice, your laughter in the null moment,
at null o’clock before one last good night.
