"Eminent Domain"
By Christian Meier
The question of ownership causes
too much unnecessary confusion.
Case in point: A new neighbor
lives up the hill.
He surrounded his house with
a moat made of grass.
Keeps the watch over it.
An old neighbor
lives down the hill.
He is a dog.
His name is Gus.
I sip my iced tea and
watch Gus make his customary trek
up the hill.
He lumbers over his well-worn path
straight to our new
neighbor's well-administered fiefdom.
Gus zeroes in on a sunny patch
of pampered greenery.
He circles.
Centers himself.
Squatting,
he exerts dominion over this space.
No confusion, or ambiguity, or irony there.
No board room babel.
Nature speaks with such refreshing clarity.
"This is my tribute to Gus, fierce foe of would-be emissaries of empire and stalwart champion of the common sense of the commons."
* * * * * * * * * *
"Leaving My Boy at Camp"
By Todd Mountjoy
It's cloudy, mist falling and rising.
Mist gathers and runs down his cheek.
No tears, only excitement for
the adventure that begins as he looks
to the forest, darker than the darkened sky,
a sky that is veiled for his first time
with white pines and black oaks.
A boy of the plains entering under the blanket
of the northwoods. He's out of place. Still he
makes each step with a sureness that I
find lacking within my own chest. Hesitating,
he looks first to me and then to the pines
dripping their offering from the sky.
I see for the first time why his mother
believes he is angelic. From his blue gaze
to his blonde hair accenting his
soft white face he looks pure,
innocent.
And then, as with all that is celestial, he
turns and vanishes within the natural.
"Just a short poem from when my oldest first left the plains of Nebraska to attend a summer camp which I attended as a youth. It was the first time he'd been in an actual forest as Nebraska is not much more than corn, weeds, and an incessant wind which is oppressively hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. It was one of those moments that, as a parent, I saw the world of childhood innocence and nature bleed into one another . . ."
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