Finding Beauty

" Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise, we will find ourselves
trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out."

                                                       Terry Tempest Williams
                                                               Finding Beauty in a Broken World

I would never disagree.
I understand the world needs another weedy lot covered with satellite dishes,
signs extolling all you can eat lobster and 24 hour hamburgers. I know our cities
are sheltering atolls in the wilderness busily excreting their coral rings of big box
stores, car lots, and airport hotels to welcome the weary traveller. And I know this
is both proper and inevitable, who am I to stand in the way of the organic growth
of the inorganic.

But when you have the asphalt ready for the next mini-mall. let me know so I can
descend into the excavation past the condoms, cable lines and storm sewer
pipes. There I will lie down among the grooves left over when the last glacier
peeled clean the world. And let me take with me the unneeded, the unwanted,
the dispossessed fox, the back porch skunk, fast food gulls and the crow with
the broken beak. Cover us with the hot mess and let the world wake us
when your done.

Guy

Eye, Fly, Awry in this Landscape of Words,

They say don’t feed the birds, you encourage

dependence, promote non-native species.

who knew, it seemed such a harmless lark.

And what is the result of my two week vacation,

starvation throughout Brentwood stretching to

Dalhousie and Charlewood, or is it more widespread.

They do fly after all and we go through a lot of seed,

will they be dropping in Shanghai and Topeka,

and if not mass starvation, perhaps delinquency.

The whole of bird society breaking down, begging,

sexual license, belling cats, downing power lines

pushing each other into the air intakes of jets.

Or could it be positive, native species returning

Bluebirds, Martins sundry Warblers all jostling

wildly for the vacant nesting boxes and bird baths.

Maybe we should think big, Passenger Pigeons,

Carolina Parakeets, Labrador Ducks, who knows

what these misplaced Weaver Birds were up to.

Maybe we will see the great brown spurts of Bison

moving out of the river valleys with their attendant

packs of Grey Wolves and lumbering Plains Grizzlies.

And if I stop feeding the sleek Black Squirrels

that hang like misshapen fruit from my feeders,

what can I get for that?

                                                                                      Guy

                                                                     

Lost Things ( decorating with)

They said keep what you like, within reason.

But my backyard is too small for tank like ankylosaurus and the great

stegosaurii with spear backs and spiked tails.

So I settled for a single giant sloth who is nibbling the unruly

caragana bushes by the passenger pigeon’s dovecote.

The kitchen is raucous with Carolina parakeets who perch more

comfortably on the high backed kitchen chairs than I ever could.

The tub enclosure is given over to Labrador ducks and countless

anonymous orchids so it’s showers from now on.

My living room is much improved by an aquarium of paisley trilobites

(who said they were black),

and the little rodent guy asleep in his terrarium

(who  is after all family) .

I am sure given a proper nurturing environment the

Tasmanian wolf pups will learn to coexist with carpet.

In the library the dodo (over by the Lewis Carroll) helps me shelve scrolls from 

Alexandria , early episodes of Dr. Who and the remaining verses of Kubla Khan.

And on Saturday nights you and me and the australopithecine, resplendent in his

bright red jersey, will be in the den watching a Red Wings game.

                                                               Guy

I took the photos from of a series of books I have

by J . Augusta illustarted by (the great) Zdenek Burian