Nature Poems

Building new homes

concept love
a buffalo roams
existence is futile
while building new homes
on the hillsides
around the cities
that need to expand
to account for the ever
growing population demands

incept hate
a blank cold slate
classrooms empty
there’s nothing to explain
about a windless plain
or absence of thunder
or silence from deafening drones
of incessant jet noise
near the airport
where planes
shuttle masses of travelers
from one concrete slab
to another

indifference is the most profound statement
death is secondary to life ordinary
gone the herds, packs, flocks
fishing vessels from every dock
gone schools, pods, songs
gone right from wrong
gone respect gone denial
gone the crocodile on the Nile
gone reason gone insane
gone the whooping crane
gone the zoo gone clean water
gone planet earth no matter
gone gone gone gone gone gone
go on

Charcoal cliffs clash with dark calm waters

Charcoal cliffs clash with dark waters.
And the dark green leaves of shrubs
barely noticeable is all that is left to slowly grow.

I’m here now, but I’m anxiously waiting for my untimely death.
I’ve planned each aspect of my burial—
–a place on a hill overlooking the endless Pacific

and my coffin the closet I’ve already purchased
made of oak and built tight by a Japanese carpenter.
I’m pleased that I’ll not be flat, but still

my eyes facing up to the stars and the rest fetal.
In my position. I have no worry or supposition.
I’m cleaned and made up for my children.

Those young dear babes will suffer immensely.
To live is to die, to die is to live.
To take is to burn and to give is to turn into some horrifying being.

I’ve lost all my dreams and now ending this temporary spell.
I know I’m heading straight to hell, but I embrace every second.
I am proud to ride into the fire and to have my soul burned alive.

So I say goodbye cruel world–a disloyal wife.
I say I love you to the children who now hate life.
I say hello to the end of time and embrace the sublime.

Charcoal cliffs clash with dark waters.
Coffins sink quickly into nothingness.
I’m the Father prohibited from giving you—a final kiss.

I’m out of time.

Father’s Axe Against the Woods of Maine

Steel love
iron heart
not just a candle
flickers and flashes
too hot to handle
forest fire ashes
that’s all there’s left
a blackened field
with tortured stumps
that will not yield
their wooden twisted forms
to the blistering flaming winds.

Some of these old stumps
had long past withstood blows
from hardened steel axes
that swung down cutting
gorgeous green trees
They felt sun light for the first time
it burned their sappy flesh
Men stood above them
after the branches crashed down
and they hollered “whoa”
down goes the beautiful pine
like a black elk shot dead
on broken knees praying
but the stumps didn’t whine
instead they stood the quiet gravestones
of dead forests
in the end wood surpasses steel
it multiples with sun and rain
and grows and grows without pain
and makes a lovely shade
for children to play
and mothers to rest
and boys to raid blue eggs
from golden Robin nests.

Rabbit Creek

Precious Little Rabbit Creek
born from jagged rocky peaks
bended earth and molten stone
made the path for it to roam,
down Bear Valley twists and turns
hurrying towards the tidal flats
past the moose’s favorite spot
to nurse her baby solid and fat.

Hat’s off to gravity’s design
so perfectly without a plan
so never reproduced by man;
but this is never understood
that’s why the asphalt bands;
multiply across our lands
hence the fresh cut little road
that runs along the valley side
midway between the mountain tops
and water pure that glides
like wings of eagles wide
uplifted by ocean winds.

Here comes an F350 Ford again
laboriously up the road
against the weight and pull
the engine strains with each explosion
while tires tear the slope’s, eroding
deeper cuts into the topsoil
spitting smoke and black oil
the hardened steel engine
lives to climb another day.

Why fear death with next
year’s model on the lot,
with ten tiny volcanoes
under each hood?
In the back’s a load of wood.
Trees come down
and what comes back?
Neat and rectangular packs
of 2X4s and 4X8 sheets
dropped off outside along the street
for one new home to be built
with views of Little Rabbit Creek
the rush of water at his feet
to help the Precious Little Man
sleep peacefully if he can.

Run Salmon Run

Run Salmon Run
Rain tossed by granite gorges,
greenish swarms of algae carpet
line the banks breathing,
sucking up the mist.
Twisting through the current rushes
tasty, delicious, scrumptious fishes.
Black bullets head first pushing
leaping up the falls and diving
backwards flip flop now they’re climbing.
Salmon fly though fresh water
to spawn a million sons and daughters.

Eggs along the cool rocks glisten.
Quietly at first, now listen:
snapping through the egg elastic
popping out fantastic flashes
batch after batch hatches and hatches.
Down the stream they float and tumble
like eyes of a million children
blinking wildly confused
but destined down the river
few survive to be delivered
to the ocean shore.

Now look the river’s empty.
No salmon swam up this year.
Nothing to count. Nothing to spear.
The old white poacher blamed Natives.
His logic queer; after all before Europeans
there were Salmon everywhere every year.
You can deplete stock but not steal spirits.
You can impoverish a family by revoking their permit.
Alaskans are strong but can they rebound?
Will youth stay and build lives here
while FEDs lobby for the one percent?
The government is indecent.
Extinction weighs heavy in schools.
Eyes close sideways in shallow pools.
Oxygen is depleted for toiling fish.

Stacked in cans on store shelves
gross deviations from wild caught
boxes paid in full hauled on trucks
from farms that grow Salmon
like human organs on a pig.
Too many rivers dammed,
too much Uncle Sam
supporting corporations too big
to the detriment of the family fishermen
and women who fight with Salmon
upstream battles against unnatural forces
that seek to destroy all of them.
Is this the end of the Salmon dynasty?
Talapia made in China: is this Alaska’s destiny?

So many nights the sky is grey

So many nights the sky is grey
Fog penetrates the cold bay
The moon lingers
like a lost stray
trying to sniff his way home

So many days the sun never shines
Cause clouds roll in all the time
I see it flicker but when I turn
Clouds pounce upon it like a cat
and in a flash the sunlight dies

So may hours the clock stands still
then it’s hands clap like laughter
I will try to get back to some event
that happened but it’s always
too long after.

I’ve heard of days that are long and lovely
Sunny and funny and good
But it’s a so far back I have to go
to my childhood
and those are simply memories
far from the realities

God is that Sun that exists
Beyond what I see
I have a faith that resides
inside eternally.