It was a typical building in the Slocan, being
A third done well, with craft and care, a third
Done poorly, and a third done not at all, left
To sit unfinished and shift in the open air.
All day, squirrels argued. One night, the dog
Caught and ate a pack rat, tail and all.
Robins hopped about the mowed patch
Of lawn hemmed in by regrowing forest,
And at evening they added their unlovely
Blurts to the long, self-echoing trills
Of thrushes, their distant cousins. It was
An idyll and desirable, but still typical
Of the ways entropy and information
Play out on Earth. Living things chased,
Mounted, and ate living things. The whole
Green assemblage digested nights and days,
And when the full moon sailed, the moths
Battered the windows, the rats gnawed
In the unfinished roof, the innumerable
Microbes chewed through the compost
And orchestrated the living soul that meant
To write "the living soil" but was corrected.
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