Long lashes house troubled eyes
Awakened by the persistent caw
Of the only spirits who haven’t forgotten flight
The scent of the mountains permeates timid nostrils
Sickeningly sweet dewy air, olfactory delight
The stars peek through the blanket of reluctant darkness
As the moon pleads for just an hour more
Of waking silence, inconsistent blackness, utter lack of light.
A violent red sun rushes above the snowcaps
The tops of mountains lapping at the skies,
Thirsty for the tepid waters of space
Time is difficult to fathom at this hour
It is unclear whether we should be sleeping or savoring
Laughing for the joy of the Light’s rebirth
Or mourning for the inevitable release of the Moon’s cold breath
A flower waves in the soft breeze, alone in a field of wheat
It waves kindly as the Moon dips below the bruised horizon
The purplish flesh of the sky looms over a pine forest
As the day progresses, shadows grow shorter,
Darkness drains further until there is a dwindling supply
Held tight by the thick fingers of sleep-deprived trees
Who embrace each other as the chill of winter arrives
Deep winds sliding gleefully down from the tops of the great mountains
A boulder, moss growing where it is shaded by a small hill
Leans over a patch of wildflowers, swaying gently
Woodpeckers encourage their dance with delicate tapping
Humming birds offer a weary, yet melodious sigh of wings
A moose weaves a path through familiar surroundings
Stepping heavily on clovers and fungi, which the lumbering animal munches
The grinding of its yellowed teeth pleases the dancing flowers
The breeze grows to an incessant wind, and they dance more frantically,
Their joy overpowering in the quiet of the forest
The air sucks itself through the forest, the trees howl
As they awake slowly, their eyes opening and closing against the light
They stretch limbs, joints creaking and protesting, leaves falling,
Cascading down the mountain side in frail clusters
They grow tired of the wind; moan as the darkness seeps out
Escaping through balding branches, shooting out, allowing light in
Exposing the young earthen carpet, warmed by clinging, winding weeds
And now, the clouds begin to cry, emotionally distraught,
Sorry for the sake of sorrow, allowing bits of powdery essence to fall
First settling on the snowcaps, climbing down towards the forest
The tops of trees tremble in the cold, the wind has stopped,
Fled to warmer areas, sweeping the fallen leaves away with it
There is nothing left to hold in the darkness, the trees cry for the night
The forest is shrouded in white, the clouds have migrated to the padded ground
All that is left of the warmth is the moose, which paws at the ground
Before letting his head hang heavily, heaving cold air through huge nostrils
His antlers displacing the snow, his hot breath melting it,
Revealing the dense foliage beneath, allowing the browned vines to inhale
The cold is sharp, cutting through the peace of the forest
The creek has frozen solid; the fish are hibernating
Still beneath the waters which once flowed freely through the forest,
Dancing across the gleaming rocks which were now slicked with ice
Powder falls from the sky, landing on the moose’s coat, urging him on
He lifts tired feet, brushes his toes across the expanse of white
And comes across a sheer drop-off where the forest has drawn its border
Between the world of white and green and brown and yellow,
And the world of the unloving, the active, and the hateful
The industrial, the material, the soulless and the heartless
The blind, deaf, ignorant and the lethargic lack of ambition
That is housed in the monumentally oblivious dome of ignorance
That they have grown to call a city, an affectionate term
For a crazed smoke-house, where smog settles rather than snow,
Where fences have replaced open fields and factories
Factories have replaced olfactory acuteness and overall awareness
Is long demolished, replaced by blindness and hate for the beautiful
Flies are swatted, rats are poisoned, and the daughters of wolves
Are kept in cages, their eyes, all three are being sprayed with a repellent
That will eventually turn the world against itself, the lovely little city
At the bottom of the mountain will move up and up and up
Until the trees are pushed back, towards the drop-off, forced to make a decision
That separates life from death, civilization from humanity,
Beauty from opaque blandness. But the moose, he travels on.
He knows not that in the years to come, he too will have to choose
Between this peaceful life on the tallest hill, created not by man
But sculpted diligently by the rough hands of the ages
And the life behind bars, gawked at even in death by the spawn of those
Who had his world crushed, his trees invaded, his snow melted
By the fumes of his ancestors long past, burnt in metal monsters
Painted to avert the curious gazes from hot, stinking breath
The stench and sight, the lights, the fright, and all the rest
The roar of the street beast frightens the mountain lion; it’s children in the den
Cower against a far wall of dirt, as a tree is executed by machine,
Alas the owl hoots as its nest is removed from the backdrop of the sky
The eggs dropping like dive-bombers, and acorns pouring out of a squirrel nest
The winters’ supply is lost to the dirty; callused hands of the lumberjacks
The eggs tumble among the dry leaves, yolks break and drip like sludge
Down the mountain side, stretching and sliding, until the unborn eyes of the owls
Rest upon the coiling smoke rising from the factory of factories
The mountain lion licks her cubs, dried blood at the side of her kind lips
The cub purrs and nudges his mother, the creature who still kills for equilibrium alone
