No Trespassing

No Trespassing

The cow was glowing as she stood in front of the sun. I knew I shouldn’t be in the field, but there I was.

She licked my extended hand, her rough wet tongue embracing it. I noticed the tag dangling from her ear, a curious silhouette.

The loud crack seemed far away, the sudden pain closer. I saw a figure standing near the farmhouse, vaguely, its arms raised.

I knew I shouldn’t be in the field, but I was.

Sonnet: To the Dark Matter

Author's note: I wrote this poem back in 1999. I am still fascinated by dark matter, and a recent story on a new theory of dark matter sparked my memory of this old sonnet (I was fascinated by the sonnet form for a while, too...).
 
Sonnet: To the Dark Matter

Something there is that yet still may not be:
Theories, conjectures, like folktales, abound;
Black mortar holding the bright tiles, for me:
Though ’tis concealed, amongst darkness be found.
In that abyss of the void in-between
Glistening gods man has too long revered
Lieth that crutch on which stars and spheres lean
(Key to a Nothing from which life appeared).
Look then, ye stargazers, upon that light
Wearied by lovers (like roses and dew!),
Thinking the luminous is the aright,
Certain that “Nothing there is!” is not true.
     Nothing: it is that which I gaze upon,
     Hiding itself ’neath the breaking of dawn.

Image credit: CosmoO, public domain image, via Wikimedia Commons.

Review of On Their Own Terms by Lee Hall

It has been nearly 70 years since Donald Watson and others launched the Vegan Society, proclaiming to the world a radical idea: that humans had no right to use animals in any way, for any reason. Since then, many seminal thinkers and works have argued the case for animal rights. Peter Singer published Animal Liberation nearly 40 years ago, and we have for decades had available the works of theorists such as Tom Regan and Gary Francione. Through their work, and the work of countless “grassroots” activists of many forms, “animal rights” has become a term of general knowledge—though its connotations can vary drastically depending on the speaker and audience!

In recent years, and especially within recent months, people in the animal rights movement have begun to reflect publicly on the movement itself, assessing principles, practices, and future efforts. Of particular import in this reflection is the question of what kind of use of animals is acceptable…or is any use not acceptable at all?

This question has rippled through animal advocacy in all its forms, leading many to wonder if there are not two animal-focused movements (often being referred to as “abolitionist” and “welfarist,” depending on how the question is answered).

Winter Garden

Winter Garden

Skeletons stand up from a field
Of snow, stretching to a white horizon,
And shiver in this crackling cold
As Boreas blows implacably.

It is impossible to remake this landscape
Even with a painter’s vision
Or make those skeletons live again—
Though a prophet, perhaps, could do it.

Our memories of picking ripe fruits
Are still fresh, but with frozen edges,
And we wonder how those skeletons
Ever bore flesh, bore fruit, and thrived.

The season of our discontent has come
And frozen the flesh on our bones,
While we gaze through the windows
And remember, foreseeing, the green.

That green fire is buried now,
Hidden deep beneath the snow,
But still it flickers and flashes out
At times—if you happen to catch it.

For this boundless blanket of snow
Is a mask, not the true face of Death,
And the seeds of summer and fall
Are sleeping and dreaming of spring.

Image credit: Paul Gauguin, La neige Rue Carcel (I), from Wikimedia Commons, public domain image.

Nightmares

Nightmares

Undone we are by the night of Time,

The realm of Saturn and his awful sons,

Forever fleeing from thunderbolts

And an unforgiving razor scythe

Wherever we may run and hide,

Unable, unwilling to blink or breathe;

And every breeze is the burning breath

Of a better predator bringing death.

The night is not ours to control,

Those hours of unwilling return

To primordial eons of living

Not as predators but as prey,

The slithering fear still lurking

At the base of our swollen brains

And in all those chilling whispers

That are far too fast to outrun.

In the darkest moments of terror,

Under a boundless starless sky

And a demoniac grinning moon,

The Abyss is singing lullabies

That steal every inkling of sleep,

And evil creatures are skulking

Towards Earth on broken paths

Of fractured, faltering light.

When daylight dies, the memories

Too deep for evolution to touch

Awake and bare their fangs, alive

Again in the shadow of death;

And then, in a neural flash, is gone

The gauzy illusion of supremacy

That we have created just to survive

In the face of unconquerable death.

But not long ago, in the night of Time,

We were the hunkering prey,

And we were the passing indigestion

Of some smarter, faster beast,

And we were the victims of Nature’s disinterest,

And we were the scavenging vermin…

Now haunting our dreams and memories

In this night we can never escape.

Image credit: Christine Matthews, from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons License.

Burial

Burial

We buried her quietly in the front yard,

When the sun had set and the rain had ceased,

The dying light allowing us to dig

A shape just larger than the meager box

That held her body, several-hours cold,

Which we should never have a need to hold.

We had seen her, and her mate, as well

As many groups of children through the years,

The happy couple returning every year

To nest beside a creek, and waddle by

The same old busy streets, and stop to eat

Beneath some feeders in a neighbor’s yard.

And here they were, the family at this feast

So readily at hand, habituating them

To bear the presence of people all around,

When out of nowhere and without a care

One careless, reckless driver in a rush

Struck her, mother mallard, and just drove on…

“She’s dead,” I heard and looked upon

Her still and silent form cradled so tenderly,

Thus cradled while alive and as she died;

So light yet bearing all the weight of death,

She seemed as though asleep, but no—

She slept forever, dead by a single blow.

We sowed some sweet alyssum seeds upon her grave

And apologized in vain for our so-selfish race

While bearing all the weight of needless death,

Of all the suffering wrought by human hands

And the cold machines that we have built in vain

To keep their blood off of our blood-stained hands.

Image credit: Catherine Munro, from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons License.

On the Edge

On the Edge

The edges creep in from time to time,

And all the wild things

Sitting on these borders

Step over the line

Like wicked spirits

Slinking through a break

In a fragile magic circle.

Things get interesting

Out there on the edge

Where domestic and wild

Can mingle for a while,

Swap stories and reminisce

About the good ol’ days

When they were much closer.

Design meets spontaneity

In a fit of indecision,

A weighing of desires

And unforeseen consequences,

Until architecture and engineering

Become biological,

Entwined in a double helix

And fueled by the power

Of a circling sun.

That is all well and good

Out there on the horizon,

To be watched like a sunset

With space in between.

But the edges creep in,

Softly like a butterfly

Slipping on in through your skin,

Contracting like concentric circles

Sucked into a singularity,

Now a bottomless black hole

With the weight of a universe

Lodged firmly, intently,

Right between your eyes.

Here the edges lie for a time,

Lodged like a chrysalis

With some strange creature inside,

Soon to fly out to the edge of the world.

Image credit: Richard Webb, from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons License.