monarchs

this was the primordial sleepless city
where the crickets never quit
under bright sun bright moon

on they sing accompaniment to
willow joy by great lake breezes
like a thousand crosswalkbuzzerboxes
chirps here deliver mannahatta shame

orange and black and orange
and orange and black
these living leaves they fall
upward and against the wind
to make mention of gravity
of journeys greater
than any anymore might take

the waves here lick
muddy hard lake sand
to wash the runny shit out
brown in
and delay swimming
for another day
instead they gift
bleached plastic shell things
left heedless to sway
with the flows they are buried
under black paste cattail humus and
in white gulls stopped guts

twice yearly they stop here
in subdivision and thicket
coached to rest then flutter
by timeless calls of the cricket

erecting roofs in a park in the rain

the rains went and 
the temperature drop dug deep
for the thickest of late season fabrics
from blackness inhabited by dusty gear.
pumping the propane sucking the batteries
igniting the chords of wood. buying more
and more ice to pack animal product bits
until the last brunch. we deliver
home to the woods. we take without
asking borrow without knowing and
embrace the feigned perpetuity
of hope. we deliver home to the woods.

about a pile of white grey ash
three wet squares our tent footprints
this here is how we left no trace
amongst the moss fern rusted ring
and swollen picnic table permanence
unknowing of the theres
that gave up their creatures' breath
their deep buried sunlight
their plastic polluted labor hours
to bring us a setting less touched.

we drove other fuel here
under open clouds and
blinding pouring bearing unease
of what to do if our arrival found
no relief from the elements
our conditioned rooms humbly shrug
for us. there, rains always stop.
there, spacestation city habitats
create voyeurists of us
in prepackaged safari zoos
with inch thick safetyglass
only permitting looks at things
we did not make.
if rustic and real are synonymous
what then are parks?

the rains went and saved us
from an arrival inconvenient 
for having to acknowledge all this life
responsible for that convenience
of restoration in ours.