It gets so depressing
watching the David Attenborough nature shows.
So much beauty,
and it’s all dying
because of us.
You know, climate change, pollution, overpopulation.
Guilt, guilt, and more guilt.
Meanwhile, the rabbits are eating peacefully in the yard.
Chipmunks dig holes in the lawn. The fisher cat
must be on patrol somewhere else this summer.
Ospreys circle overhead: mean motherfuckers
when you see them up close, when they’re not high up
scanning for scup in the salt marsh, where blue crabs
hang on pilings at the dock, chewing, brooding,
reproducing. A family of otters suddenly
crosses the road, and you stop, mouth agape.
My brother pulls out in his SUV packed with family, dog, and gear,
including bikes jutting out the back like the strange ganglia
of insects you’d prefer not to see. Kisses are launched
through the air, arms make arches of triumph in the sky,
everything honks, and then silence.
Silence, until the wren takes up its lilting song.
It’s a bit like bells on speed. A staccato heart
in love with the world and not sure
if it is loved back. You know, a Romantic.
The chipmunk does not concur, and answers
with an angry chirr. Crickets play background music
as in a suspenseful film without a plot. A catbird
adds its two cents with a screech like fingernails on a board,
or like a hateful witch’s cackle. A jazzman gone bad.
When in the mood, he riffs on those screeches and cackles
like Roscoe Mitchell playing free jazz
when I saw him in Madison, WI at the turn of the century.
Not exactly mellifluous, but virtuosic as all hell.
Hell, it’s quite a nature show out here. I hope
the coyotes don’t get my kids. Even the no-see-umms
like to mix it up with us, as long as there’s no wind.
But tonight, a sea-breeze is blowing, blowing hard,
blowing as if it will never stop, and I’m thankful.
Thankful for all that thrives among us – with us?
It isn’t much. It’s not on TV or anything.
But it’s all that I have, although having
is not the right verb.
Rimas Uzgiris is a Lithuanian/American poet and translator. His work has appeared in Barrow Street, Hudson Review, The Poetry Review and elsewhere. He is the author of North of Paradise, and Tarp [Between], (poems translated into Lithuanian, shortlisted for poetry book of the year), translator of eight poetry collections from Lithuanian, and the Venice Biennale Golden Lion winning operetta Sun and Sea. He was educated at UCSD, UW-Madison, Rutgers-Newark, with a Ph.D. in philosophy and an MFA in creative writing. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant and an NEA Translation Fellowship, he teaches at Vilnius University.