Everything about the dirt road through
The regrown forest smirked, bears still live
Here, including a grizzly or two, plenty
Of coyotes, and an occasional cougar, too.
Timber wolves, admittedly, have not been
Seen in generations, although their genes
Are rampant in these huge coyote hybrids.
It was Robert Frost's kind of wood, dark
And puddled, old snow lingering in pockets
Until June, fast-growing young copses
Of evergreens closing in to remind you
That inhuman nature, however viciously
Hacked, waits, primed for a rapid comeback.
You are neither the master nor the innocent
Here, breezes lisp and creek tumult mutters.
You are the runaway slave of human culture,
Hungry as that rare lynx you spotted, twilight
On this very path, in a moment of startled
Glances between predatory mammals
Caught going their separate ways at dusk,
One as itself, the other possessed. The road
Was one property of a third type of appetite
Exploiting but not belonging to either of you,
That cold appetite still possessing you now,
What every poem about trees was, really,
A golden-eyed, gilt-tongued beast that now
Rules the world but will itself be eaten, soon
As its unholy back is turned and the knived
Words, inert information themselves, are left
Helpless before a resurrected green death.
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