Wetland Song

The April morning's quiet

and so is the November.

Wherever people outnumber trees

or the dominant cover type

is unquiet. Nothing wrong with that.

Walt got it right, and Jane Jacobs:

the city is an experienced,

used beauty. Her toes are long,

nails thick and hair thin. Yet

her kisses can be sweet; or

smell of s**t. All my life I've tried to point my window toward

some narrow wedge of nature.

On Seaman Ave., over the roof

beyond the chimneys to the park

where every dog was walked.

Could I survive soot and an air shaft now, pigeons and cats,

or even a desk in the legislature for my lot in life. How about

prison like Etheridge Knight,

Nazim Hikmet?

I've gotten soft.

When he builds that house in the pocket

wetland my window now looks out on,

the developer will have given me what I need.

Amphibian mortality,

gravel, fill,

oak, ash and maples felled. Good

to the last drop is our bitterness, our love.

Reviews

[Perkele.7885]

Here in America, to the last straw we say and then? And then what? Do we have a criminal intent? Do we finally move away? Do we stay and become the nasty b*****s in the brown town house on Welles avenue? What exactly. Do we act, react or just let what ever is about to happen in the wetlands happen?

[Sumana Roy]

the poem is atmospheric, visual and reads like a deep sigh...