Category: Nature/Ecology

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Doom Loop

just past the last internet tower
a rattlesnake’s elegant S

slipping through the crushed stone
almost makes you
want its skin

and divining this
its terminal bones
buzz in your direction:

down-ridge over the rocks’
stormwater eyes

which let you pass through them
as easily as the vultures

or the common mullein
at the first overlook

from a seed planted
by a hiker’s boot

on a well-loved trail
a raccoon’s footprint

might spell hard luck
for endangered wood rats

and yes most of the old trees
have fallen to new blights or pests

that travel the same
pilgrimage route

hemlock woolly adelgids
hitching rides on birds’ feet

spongy moth caterpillars
ballooning in each June

but the vistas are glorious
one can still dream wilderness dreams

ignoring recent clearcutting
in the swampy woods below

the old oaks that remain up here
are still so extravagant

seeming to gesture
seeming to conjure up

you can find forests two inches tall
made of gray-green lichen

stop to watch a slug
cross a jagged rock

a study in single-mindedness
gliding on his/her orange foot

or a sharp-shinned hawk
might speak to you

from atop a snag
your eyes meet

you notice how the branch
keeps swaying after he flies

launching into the green-
feathered wind

descent is difficult
who wouldn’t rather stay high

on a mountain stretching
half-way across the state

low as a wrinkle
in the earth’s hide

this would-be spine where pines
grow old and empty

and you peer into the largest one
and find another snake

this time no wilderness creature
but a black rat snake

coiled and sleeping like
the climber’s rope that it is

nearby a tussock caterpillar
yo-yos in mid-air

white and bristly
as a lost eyebrow

and charmed you decide
to walk all afternoon

looping back
in the long shadows
to your car

Jackson Trail, Rothrock State Forest
August 11, 2023

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Brain Fog

awoken by a dying rabbit
its shrieks in the night

i dream a cleaver-shaped moon
rain soft as fur

in the small hours even
the mosquitoes are sleeping

i listen to the surf of blood
pulsing in my temples

a cloud has come down for us
we don’t need to rise

Posted on by Dave Bonta

New videohaiku: the future…

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Watch on Vimeo

What does it mean to look forward to something any more, in a world hurtling toward ecological collapse if not thermonuclear destruction? There was a bestseller back in the 1970s called Future Shock about the social and psychological damage incurred by modern society’s relentless drive toward progress… or so I imagine, having never actually read it. But it’s been on my mind lately despite that minor detail. I’ve also been thinking a lot about ignorance, both in epistemological and sociological terms, and not coming to any firm conclusions because I rarely do. That’s a poet thing, I suppose. Not knowing the future, though, seems essential to mere survival, let along progress, as the Rene Char quote in the sidebar here says: “How can we live without the unknown before us?”

This has been a horrific summer in many parts of North America, but here in central Pennsylvania we went from a severe spring drought to a very wet but relatively cool summer. Trees went from nearly dropping their leaves at the beginning of June to massive growth spurts in July—aided, I’m sure, by all the extra CO2 in the atmosphere. And part of what kept things cool for us was the haze from burning forests elsewhere, as I’ve mentioned in various poems. But one of the pleasures of haiku is being liberated from having to explain things. They can just lurk in the background, mostly inaudible to the reader. Distant flashes that can mean whatever you want them to.

The fireflies, who had been scarce early on, had their highest numbers toward the end of the season. I shot this 30-second clip of them on my phone at dusk last week, just as the weather was turning from muggy to cool. Three nights ago the katydids started up; in a week or so, their throb will be all we hear. I look forward to weeks of good sleep.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Dog Days

linked-verse sequence

small talk…
the enormity
of the heat

dog day cicadas
in and out of sync

calling once
for old times’ sake
wood pewee

a hay rake at rest
with its teeth turned up

distant shot
or just the ice settling
in a glass

the old picnic blanket
attracting hornets

swimming hole
the low drone
of an incoming horsefly

blades of deer tongue grass
parsing out the shade

dolls’ eyes
clustered on a stalk
daddy longlegs

her schizophrenic brother
searching the sky

downpour
the sudden press of bodies
under a roof

Posted on by Dave Bonta

On the Rocks

the way boulders come together
to make a mountaintop trail

like a puzzle with missing pieces
into which a foot might fit

or a yellow birch root
or a plush runner of moss

it becomes a sanctuary
from the sicknesses borne by ticks

the rashes fevers and nausea
fatigue and brain fog

all the gordian knot holes
untied by death

just off-trail where the fallen
collapse into themselves

and an alarm call passes
from red squirrel to red squirrel

among conifers where the wind
can’t stay still

but the trail rejoins the road
there’s no escape

the bumblebee at my feet
has a fling with some wild basil

dance partners in a small hell
of roadside weeds

the ecological consequence
of a war of each against all

hermit thrushes conjure
a melancholy sweetness

in one key after another
a sob catches in my throat

overhead a vulture banks
on heat rising from the gravel

blue stone gouged out
of adjacent valleys

where the pits someday go back
to shallow seas

wave upon wave of blue ridges
vanishing into the haze

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Hiking the Horizon

a humid mid-day climb
through clouds of gnats

up to a high ridgetop breeze
and the drone of deerflies

beside the trail a street map
in a mined-out witch hazel leaf

on the northwest horizon
where i walked earlier in the week

this mountain had been
the southeast limit of my view

and now without thinking about it
here i am in the haze

i find a coyote calling card
nestled in the rocks

a black-throated green warbler
regurgitates a caterpillar

green for its red-
mouthed fledgling

a dry rattle
and i am briefly airborne

before i even spot the snake
crossing the trail ahead

the unhurried whispery flow of her
over the stones

dappled and dapper
in patterned velvet

i follow with my phone out
as my pulse returns to normal

 

a netwing beetle flies past
without stopping

spongy moths flutter like spirits
between the oaks

which dwindle year by year
replaced by maples

but some of the old ones
manage to weather

the total loss of their heartwood
to lightning and rot

hollow yet strong
harboring a wild inner life

i surprise a large family of turkeys
foraging on the ridgetop

the mother runs downhill
the poults fly into the treetops

thunder in the distance
finds an echo in my stomach

i down handfuls of blueberries
from a patch of sunlight

on Brewer’s Trail just below the crest
there’s a white sand spring

i soak my fisherman’s hat
in its only pool

descend the mountain dripping
like a small cloud

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Monsoon

amanita half-eaten
by a white fog of mold

what makes me think
i alone can stay dry

we appear to have entered
a monsoon season

and the spongy moths are mating
having prospered during the drought

the dusty-winged males flutter up
at my every step

through an ankle-high
grove of sassafras sprouts

to my seat against an oak
the sassafras in my thermos

and a seethe of traffic
from the interstate below

losing all its teeth
in the rain-fattened moss

a foot away from my right foot
a green stick caterpillar

clings to the end
of a ghost pipe

the way new beliefs
take root in a convert

held up rigidly
against the clouds

Posted on by Dave Bonta

White Solstice

sun summoning from a white sky
the ridgetop oaks’ fuzzy shadows

gnomons enough to mark
the summer solstice

in one patch of half-sunlight
a box turtle’s red eye blinks

while a scarlet tanager flutters
in the canopy on dark wings

how cool the ghosts
of burning forests have kept us

it’s late morning and i’m still
in long sleeves

a breeze pages through the oaks
a revelation of caterpillars

and the tanager is a quick study
warbling as he hunts

one tree bears a vertical slit
of sky and leaves

crossed by a wide scar
straight through the heartwood

where two intertwined trunks
failed to fuse

and this cross made by a cross
bears an immense green crown

as it should for standing up
to all our weather

eyelids drooping i walk on
into a summer afternoon

the field has its sparrows
and the eastern wood its pewees

but i am melancholy as a catbird’s
parody of a wood thrush

for true refinement can only
be learned from the masters

which is perhaps why the sun
in firefly season

models itself after
that glowworm the moon

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Catechism

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

what does it mean
to be an object

under the soft hammers
of rain on the roof

to waken in the night
with the sky at all the windows

what does it mean
to be a subject

a hummingbird buzzing
somewhere over my head

returning to its perfect teacup nest
in the last rays of sun

what does it mean for subject
and object to merge

peering up from the hollow
of a tree after rain

my own face
as startled as a deer

Posted on by Dave Bonta

East of Eden

millipede under
the lip of my rock

curling into a question mark
as i stand to go

among mountain laurel blossoms
their sticky white cups

falling in the drought-stricken woods
with audible ticks

we’ve had a taste of rain
the moss is soft underfoot

the breeze carries the despairing
rage of a pair of birds

watching their children die
in the sunless tunnel of a snake

who is presumably savoring
her only meal of the week

knowledge of good and evil
extracts a terrible toll

while two trains
meet at a crossing

two broken chords disharmonizing
clear to high heaven

the way my two grandmothers
sometimes meet in me

the strident one
and the contemplative one

on bad air days when everyone
else also sees

this achingly beautiful planet
through a veil of ash

and i don’t know how it seems
to extraterrestrial visitors

but on earth the truth is bitter
it’s an acquired taste