Climatic Harvest
Fire slashes its scythe
through western forests,
leaves only
a few brittle bones
still stubborn enough to stand.
Smoke suffocates the Sun,
chokes the scarred sky,
rains ash from the life
which could not survive.
Will we?
through western forests,
leaves only
a few brittle bones
still stubborn enough to stand.
Smoke suffocates the Sun,
chokes the scarred sky,
rains ash from the life
which could not survive.
Will we?
This Land
written while reading Chief Seattle’s Oration
Needles on the pines,
sand on the shore,
mist in the woods--
holy in the Salish language.
Chief Seattle
of the Suquamish
did not understand
how the Earth and the Sky
could be purchased for
one hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Sap coursing through the trees,
blood in the veins
of men, women and children--
all the same to those
who were the Pacific Northwest.
Even their dead gathered memories
of the mountains and forests;
were given the right
to return to the earth.
We came to conquer,
to bury our dead
in small plots of Earth
purchased for the privilege to sleep.
We rewrote history
in our own image,
tracked iron across the prairie
and dammed the bloodlines of the Earth.
We bought and sold this land for profit:
forged mountains into jewelry,
bottled rivers inside plastic,
compressed the air with commerce.
Will our dead cease to love us?
Will our children forgive us?
Will our night be so dark,
that it won’t matter
where we spend eternity?
Needles on the pines,
sand on the shore,
mist in the woods--
holy in the Salish language.
Chief Seattle
of the Suquamish
did not understand
how the Earth and the Sky
could be purchased for
one hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Sap coursing through the trees,
blood in the veins
of men, women and children--
all the same to those
who were the Pacific Northwest.
Even their dead gathered memories
of the mountains and forests;
were given the right
to return to the earth.
We came to conquer,
to bury our dead
in small plots of Earth
purchased for the privilege to sleep.
We rewrote history
in our own image,
tracked iron across the prairie
and dammed the bloodlines of the Earth.
We bought and sold this land for profit:
forged mountains into jewelry,
bottled rivers inside plastic,
compressed the air with commerce.
Will our dead cease to love us?
Will our children forgive us?
Will our night be so dark,
that it won’t matter
where we spend eternity?
Mike McLaren forages for words wherever he can find them, and records them by hand in journals of graph paper. He makes a living as a content writer, sketches graffiti cartoons, meditates, and plays Texas slide and country blues in the local breweries for free beer. He spends every moment of his spare time hiking, biking, and camping the Colorado Rockies with his wife of 43 years. His poems and narrative essays appear in journals all over the world, here and there, now and again—he doesn't know how, and he never knows when.