WORLD WAR COVID
Poems, mine and theirs
We Are All the Grizzly Man
Each of us trips down the garden path,
To the heartbeat of Timothy Treadwell,
Whether perched in a redwood for months on end,
Or 'cause the kid's’ college fund lacks ecocide dividends.
To each of us, some of his elfin charm
And a fair share of his narcissism.
What a silly idea, that he guarded those Grizzlies
And not the other way around.
What kept them, for years on end
Of noon-day nights and midnight days,
From nosing his rations
And ripping open their gory deposit?
He guarding his bears, guarded in turn by Park Rangers,
Each shielded from the vandal nonprofit of developing
This bitter winter landscape, this mosquito paradise
Good for nothing but post cards and fat Grizzlies.
We stand our ground, more or less aware
Of dangers that lurk along every azimuth,
From tiny, radiant particles, to the long-inert virus,
To cosmic disaster, with fateful man set in-between.
We face down the world 's desolation,
Our perfect identity rejected as unworthy.
We make up stories to keep breathing,
No matter how absurd.
Facing the camera obscura of memory,
We memorialize our absurdity with selfies,
Record nighttime lapses on DNA film,
Stage tears of rage against the indifference of God.
We seduce lovers into our fantasy,
Persuade them, with bouquets and flowery talk,
They will never be alone if we are here,
But cradled instead in tender loving care.
We dismiss our doom gloom,
No matter how long politely ignored;
Like the quiet talk with a stolid cop
Who'd put you in the hospital in a New York minute.
We croon and chuckle over sweet little cuties
Apt to slay us sooner or later.
Desperate lovers of people and stuff
That could not be worse for us.
So don’t laugh off his folly.
Don’t curse his obsession that put down a cranky old bear.
Don’t tisk over the agony of his steadfast mate,
Or suppose you could have done better.
There is no place to hide, no better way,
No certainty or security except in delusion.
Perfectly free to choose our categorical fate,
We are all the Grizzly man.
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