- Walking
Petersburg Creek, the Tlingit’s Seetkab Heenuk’w,
- across the
Wrangel Narrows from the mud-flat sloughs of
-
- Mitkof Island,
hiking a seldom-used wilderness trail
- I pass the last
cabin, last sign, last mark on the map
-
- and come upon
brown steaming mounds of berry scat,
- piles of gutted
humpies, half-chewed, fins still twitching.
-
- Through skunk
cabbage rank with growth and devil’s club
- waiting in
ambush, its honed thorns prickly with menace,
-
- I skirt
innocent gooseberries, expecting the worst,
- prepared around
each bend for some dark hulk swatting fish
-
- and the
ultimate terror of Ursus arctos horribilis.
- Thick groves of
old growth soak up light and squeeze out
-
- shapes, the
stab of strange limbs, flicker of breeze.
- No quick exit
out this maze of Sitka Spruce
-
- tangled arctic
bog, muskeg carnivorous with quivering
- insects caught
in the sundew’s last embrace.
-
- A hundred
humped shadows leap out at me from the brush,
- startled,
hungry, rearing up on hind legs, head-high
-
- and higher,
murder growling in their fierce gaze.
- So near I can
smell their panic wild as fish breath.
-
- Lost in this
still untamed Alaskan bush where two-leggeds
- have no more
weight than the meat they carry on their bones,
-
- puffing a tin
whistle like a webelo,
- clapping hands,
singing out of dread not joy,
-
- I keep seeing
the hundred kinds of Death,
- its snout
hairy, fangs bristling, about to attack.
-
- Bruin gone
berserk and bounding towards me.
- Slashed muscle,
the snapped arm ripped from its socket.
-
- Claws long as
Bowie knives. Eyes like smoking volcanoes.
- To run or play
dead? Its bulk crushing me into the earth.
-
- Seeing hot
flash my whole life engraved on a salmonberry
- ground to pulp
in the molars of a steel-trap jaw.
-
- I meet no one
walking that trail, neither grizzly nor rabbit,
- not even a deer
munching lichen.
-
- The air is
crisp, clouds huddled against nameless peaks.
- Perhaps for the
first time in my life
-
- I am alone with
the dark shape of
- myself.
-
- Lone Cone Free Poem
-
- edited by Dennis Fritzinger,
Karen Coulter, and Dwight Metzger. feral press, Tuscon, Arizona
1998.
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- The
Great Silence sings
- Its
silent soothing song
- But
the cacophony of commerce
- Won’t
let it sing for long.
-
- Deep
in the roaring city
- Sirens
bellow and howl
- One
cannot hear the wolf
- Nor
heed the hooting owl
-
- Autos
clank and rattle
- Jackhammers
pound
- Boom-boxes
blare
- The
assault of ultra-sound
-
- Listen,
people listen
- We’ve
forgotten how to listen
-
- Loon
wails ancient messages
- Into
the liquid northland night
- While
we sit smug in soundproof rooms
- With
TeeVee’s tiny light.
-
- We
bicker, moan and quarrel
- Babble,
gossip, spout
- Mutter,
moan and grumble
- To
keep the silence out.
-
- Our
minds become unhinged
- By
the bedlam and the din
- We
need to take the time
- To
let the silence in!
-
- Listen,
people listen
- We’ve
forgotten how to listen
-
- Brilliant
minstrels pour out
- The
passions of the age
- The
anguish and the glory
- The
fever and the rage
-
- But
all we hear is merchants
- Hawking
shoddy wares
- As
we sit and simper
- In
our locked-up lairs
-
- Listen,
people listen
- We’ve
forgotten how to listen
-
- Water
calls and whispers
- As
rain or as cascade
- Aspen
forest rustles;
- A
shining, singing glade
-
- Hummingbird
is humming
- As
she darts from bloom to bloom
- Owl
hoots a sweet goodnight
- Out
there in the gloom
-
- Listen,
people listen
- We’ve
forgotten how to listen
-
- For
silence is not merely
- The
absence of all sound
- It’s
night in the deep woods
- Toads
chirping all around
-
- It’s
each voice given due
- Each
sound acknowledged, heard
- The
creaking of a tree
- The
calling of a bird.
-
- Go
sit upon the canyon rim
- In
some far-flung place
- Let
your mind meander
- And
gaze off into space
-
- The
silence will enfold you
- In
peace as old as time
- As
for one fleeting moment
- You’re
touched by the sublime!
-
- LISTEN...Listen...listen...
-
Philip R. Knight
-
"Earth
First ! Campfire Poems"
-
- edited by Dennis Fritzinger,
Karen Coulter, and Dwight Metzger. feral press, Tuscon,
Arizona 1998.
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