Spoiler Alert
a poem I keep futzing around with but it features raccoons... again
Spoiler Alert
It is messy at times... *
1.
Nobody dies on screen.
Somebody has to kill it
saying what happens
at the end
after the trap set
after the scent of peanut butter
after a wet dreamnight.
What catches a raccoon:
the turn of the earth a gleam
the unspent seeds
the pine siskins refuse to eat.
2.
Hard not to believe this
the right thing, this feeding
of grosbeak, red-winged, and
golden breasted, this
a kind of redemption
for hunger. Blame
those who puppet the world,
profit by the spoils. Surely
even they countenance
a thing on the wing, perhaps
only to kill what sings.
3.
Night after night the trigger
awaits a target. It is dark when it happens:
the clank of metal on metal the surprise gasp
scream or something deeper
more reverent
silence
that question of how a world begins
ends with thievery
a god
a thought
even a bang
a whisper.
4.
A friend seriously suggests
the people of Gaza should choose
relocation rather than
annihilation, rather than waiting
for the airstrikes their fields to burn.
Consider the raccoons here in what
we call our yard, the harrying unleashed,
the removal of food and kin, consider
who’s moved in on whom.
5.
What once was determined
fauna enrichment in Germany:
the North American raccoon.
A million strong now a has-been
cutie hunted as game, invasive,
carrion and pest, a robust vector
of nasties that can kill the hands
that feed, no matter how often
everyone washes their hands
of them.
6.
While one of us watches the art
thriller and hopes the blood is just
virtual,
the other taking heart
from the Rom-Com Rotten Tomatoes
scores 54%, the “street cleaners” show up.
Next morning we replay
the animal cams: nine raccoons,
beautiful in the halftone light,
digging up what’s been cropped.
7.
a midden of cracked shells
sprouts irrespective of drought
one zebra-striped moth wing
no body to hold it down
a spider hangs by a thread
in the camera’s light
the flying squirrel a marvel
a fluorescing looter we applaud
and here coupled
these pastel and collared doves
until
and unless
*from “Las Golondrinas Always Come Back” by Rev. John Hagerman Spirit & Life. Las golondrinas, Spanish for swallows.
Note: the spacing is always weird in Substack

Some wonderful lines! Very contemplative, guess winter will do that.