June Poems

May was spent mostly taking notes on phenomenology and working on a chapter book, so these poems come from June.

Declaration of Camping: Devil's Lake, 5JUNE2021/1437

When one goes camping with a wife, loved ones, or family,

It should always be kept in mind

That camping is the removal of social structures

and centered on time spent loving what is natural.

With a good time spent on meditation of that first technology--fire.

Apart from that which protects our wild spaces,

There should be no oughta's, mustofs, needto's,

or any other claim to another's pure enjoyment of freedom .

Thoughts on Plastic

I was sitting by the campfire

on a warm afternoon,

Nudging lunch fire logs

To the completion of their combustion.

A long and tedious task,

For those with time and desire to embrace

the warm and smoky tedium.

A member of our party,

meaning no harm,

threw a paper plate and bowl

into the embers -- still smoldering

as I write this down an hour later.

Normal plates of paper tend to burst into flame,

But these vessels of our erstwhile lunch darkened,

and form shifted, and melted; rather than

bursting into flame;

And I realized the omnipresent nature of plastic.

Case in point:

Last week I had a molar removed, which left a small cavern in my upper left-hand jaw,

and a piece of hamburger,

And a piece of hamburger

from a foil meal settled

deeply into the pocket.

With mild consternation,

I tongued it, picked at it with my pinkie, swished beer, wine, and water to wash it away,

And eventually it dislodged leading to a ranscendent freedom from interior oppression--

the demands of a troubling crumb of meat.

Then this morning

I was telling sweet Penny

how to catch a whale with a worm.

Put the worm on the hook,

and catch a minnow.

Put the minnow on the hook

and catch a barracuda;

put the barracuda on a hook,

and catch a whale.

Only here did I correct my awful science,

realizing that whales eat krill and plankton,

sifting it in their remarkable baleen.

Then I thought of the island of microplastics,

the size of Texas,

and the billions of plastic pellets that coat Malaysia's shores,

and I thought of the hamburger in my toothhole,

and the plastic in the whale's baleen.

And even though it is a potential problem now

rather than a known actuality--

Humans-- the wisdom toting beasts, should see to it that they reduce

chance hazards four our fellow creatures,

rather than leave the campsite a booby-trapped mess.

Hiakuish

Sitting in the woods,

Gourd pierced by phantom arrow

Launched centuries ago.

Hail Mary for a Turtle

It was impressed upon me, in my youth,

that the appropriate response to the call of a siren

--whether ambulance, fire truck, or police--

is to say a "Hail Mary,"

Because, in today's parlance,

somebody somewhere is having a bad day.

So, I pray.

--a knee-jerk reaction, but sincere.

Thus, today, driving downtown on the great river road,

I slowed past the remains of a broken turtle.

The "Hail Mary" found its way out,

but I stopped up short,

realizing that the turtle had no cause for grace,

having not descended from the poisoned fruit eaters.

And so, old turtle,

when sirens sing for me, one last time,

I'll meet you as you are your fuller self,

and look at the cracks in your shell,

cracks of a part that didn't last.

In the Garden

A bird chirps in an elm

answered by two birds in a cedar.

Sadie, who was whining on the porch,

is now sprawled on a warm sun lawn.

Two lads pass by;

One repeats the phrase "gaming strategy" twice in the time it takes the two to pass our garden frontage.

Two parents and a pre-ambulator: too quiet to hear more than a murmur.

Of course, there are less natural sounds:

--the factories on the riverfront,

--the basslines of a radio,

--car wheels whirring down 44th Avenue.

--the ubiquitous blare of a Harley, blowing open its pipes.

Seven sparrows flee the elm's wide arms;

one chirps anon, unanswered,

and who am I to say what is natural?

A Harley blats off, and I say, "I am."