consequences

I need

A breathy forest

full of undergrowth

and fallen limbs,

with the occasional tree

across my path,

lying there soft and

fungal, as a place

to rest and look around

or close my eyes to listen.

But I’m an intruder and

have stilled the movements

of birds and small rodents

so unless the wind sighs

some dry branch into another

and rustles the leaves,

I am alone.

I like the quiet.

I pick myself up

and crash along,

breaking twigs

and branches

with every step,

and bring calamity to

whole civilizations

of little creatures.

I wonder what their media

and governments

have to say about

the trampled villages

and collapsed tunnels?

I read somewhere that every

step crushes eleven

spiders and no telling who else.

What other microcosms

of no consequence to me

are left in smoking ruins,

the inhabitants flying in panic?

Sometimes there is a small brook

of clear water splashing over rocks

on its lazy way to lower ground, so

I look for an outcrop in the cool

damp to sit again, remove

my shoes and wash my feet,

just getting away from it all. 

Reviews

[Eilis]

The trouble is we can do nothing without also doing something else. As your poem juxtaposes the peace of a walk for us is the terror of the natural world. Or at the very least a casual destruction through our very presence. We are often unaware of our power but that does not negate the power.

I like the way you do juxtapose the teeming of life in the wilderness with the (human) loneliness that can be a side effect of being within it. There is so much there, so much life, but we cannot connect in the same ways we can with the human world. There is mistrust on both sides. Perhaps this is why we can be so careless.

There is peace among the trees but also the consequences of our presence as your poem shows so well. But we do belong there, we are part of that world. We have just don’t always understand our power to dis-order and destroy. I enjoyed your poem.

[Vol]

Thank you for your lovely commentary. When I lived in a lush Tennessee forest, I was always aware... In the arid Llano Estacado of the Texas panhandle, not so much... Life out here is tough, and many of its denizens will bite you...

[emmajoygreen]

Seems more and more our planet deserves better than human beings on it - more those 'all things great and small', the wonders of water and creatures and growth that give rather than war upon war that destroys with every tank, drone or whatever. Life on Earth should be a radiant reality not a hellish crater at the core of it. In your last stanza you have touchingly told how you feel and in fact, deserve - as a human being by, ' just getting away from it all.' Yes, yes, yes!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

What wonderful metaphor here. The forest as civilizations being stymied and wiped because of intruders, war...a woody Ukraine dealing with...
and other countries getting invaded...
So well done here.
j.

[Lorry]

Yes indeed Vol, so many consequences for those lowlirst of creatures, in our estimation at least.
Part of what I do is to clear trails and pathways of any danger and low hanging branches, which makes me think that people come here for nature and are therefore the intruders, yet here we are taming nature so a sharp low hanging branch doesn't give us an ouchie while we do it.
If you can hear that creaking sound, that is all those pioneering adventurous turning in their graves at what I call nature light.
And please folks, nature doesn't come with garbage cans, so take yours with you and leave the place the way you found it.
Ps... Sorry for the rant, but some people are just that ignorant that you gotta take each chance you get to get it through to these morons 😊

[Vol]

Lorry,
Some folks say humans were created in the image of God, some say we evolved from monkeys. After being stunned by the grandeur and magnificence of The Grand Canyon, then walking some of the trails where litter of all kinds abounded, I came to the conclusion that both points of view are correct. Those who are created have souls and are disgusted by litter and the other barbarisms practiced by the other half of humanity who evolved and do not have souls. Both groups look the same and can only be distinguished by their actions.
Vol