A Collection of Poems: Creeper, Brown; Outside; Guilt Trip
By Lucia Owen
Creeper, Brown
Indexed so in Sibley’s splendid
bird book as if there were other
Creepers, Blue and Red or Iridescent.
It lives, vertical and shy, on tree trunks.
Minute, quick, and to say what I saw
takes longer than the instant
a Brown Creeper took a bath in
a still place in hillside run-off near
dusk on a December day.
It splashed and flut-flutted its wings,
shook itself so droplets flew and
caught the low light, and for a nano-second
it bathed in a misty rainbow. So
utterly small and private with no
need of me to see, or say its name
it flew up, landed,
fluffed itself twice,
preened and flew away.
Outside
We didn’t know what killed the deer, but
that winter morning the carcass lay between our dirt road
and the lake. No choice but to leave it then watch
kite-winged crows then ravens feed
then days later one brindle coyote and
that night even with glass panes between, a shiver
as the pack’s yaps and yammers fed the atavistic
fear that we were cowering in the Arctic dark
in a snow house. In the morning the carcass lay twisted,
bare backbone and rib cage a crumpled
dismembered wreckage.
And then two eagles came. All that afternoon
they worked to drag the carcass
off the land onto the ice beating their wings
to pull then eat then dig in talons and flap
with huge and mighty strokes to move it again and
eat till only scattered bones and hide remained
in the stark hierarchy and secret elegance
of nature’s economy.
Guilt Trip
In her basement this Saturday
the countrywoman, retired, starts to collect stuff
to take to the dump. Somehow she has never
bought ‘transfer station’ and wonders
where it’s all transferred to and has a few ideas
but won’t ask for fear they’ll tell her and
she’ll turn inside-out with guilt.
She eyes the four trash bags
of returnable ‘bottles’ that she thinks
of as metonymy for all the milk and juice and beer
and designer sparkling water and just plain
water from the water thieves at Poland Spring
a.k.a. Nestlé that just the two of them have consumed.
Briefly she thinks of her good well water
and feels the familiar flinch of guilt.
She’s been worn thin by requests
to save the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and
the Indonesian pygmy rhino and
the Furbish lousewort and
because she was born with a dominant responsibility
gene she shorts out and can do
nothing about any of it. Then she thinks
How grocery shopping fries her
choice synapses and although her education
tells her no blueberries or swordfish from
Peru or Chile, there’s beef and
penitentiary chicken and whether the coffee
is shade grown and is what she wants
responsibly source (which means?) including
plant- based everything and how much
she dislikes soy. Her exhaustion
and the dilemmas are existential. All that
Kicks in as she looks at the four trash bags.
She knows she will have to take them
to the Redemption Center 25 miles away
where she will stand in line and think
what Redemption for her might mean and
how to ask for it. She knows
she is far from it, often beyond it, and smiles
when she thinks of the mileage and
the inner struggles she could use Redemption for.
This morning she loads the bottles and the trash
together to skip the drive and live
with the guilt of adding to the landfill
maybe offset by her having
a smaller carbon footprint for the day.
Turning in, she sees a row of green plastic
trash cans next to the compactor
with a hand-lettered black on red sign
that says ‘Bottle Drop to Benefit
Boy Scouts.’
She pulls over, puts her head on her hands
on the steering wheel and laughs and
laughs until she cries and
Ed the dump guy walks over and
taps on her window to asks if
she’s ok.
For information regarding recycling reform in Maine, check out the PDF link below:
Recycling Reform Facts