Wednesday, 22 of May of 2013
Treat each bear as the last bear.
Each wolf the last, each caribou.
Each track the last track.
Gone spoor, gone scat.
There are no more deertrails,
no more flyways.
Treat each animal as sacred,
each minute our last.
Ghost hooves. Ghost skulls.
Death rattles and
dry bones.
Each bear walking alone
in warm night air.
Gary Lawless
Dec.-Jan. 2001 Earth First!
(Published in Dire Elegies, 59 Poets on
Endangered Speices of North America)
Date: May 17, 2013
Categories: Gary Lawless
Tags: Animal identification, Bear, Biology, Dungeons & Dragons, Ghost, Gray Wolf, Reindeer, Scavengers, Spoor, Zoology
In lives nested with my life
I’ve lived in places wilder
Than these thoroughly permanent grey
Chicago suburbs.
As I arrange those memories
I try to be grateful without being greedy:
Living near the wild
Is a rare and great privilege.
But even here there are still
Wild moments to discover.
On my nine-mile winter darkness bike ride I think,
“This isn’t quite like being in Yellowstone,
“Not the same kind of place
“But in the same kind of spirit.”
The darkness holds my bicycle
Close to its secret heart
Where bison breathe winter air
With simple resistance.
Jenny McBride
July-August 2005 Earth First!
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