The Remnants of Rivers

the remnants of rivers


his poems list birds & rivers as if Gary Snyder
John Muir Rachel Carson
all good people all rightfully awed by the power
& beauty of the natural world
all outraged by the ignorance greed & tawdry tastes
of nature’s most conscious creature

we sit at a table in a Texas colder in January than
it is in Fairbanks, Alaska
warming she sneers global warming
& he looks at the menu says
a Northwest Passage two years ago:
good-bye polar bears

when the Antarctic slips into the sea
within the next century
check, please

but you were saying about
the poet the polar
bears the end

perhaps he will
photograph
parts of

their names
ockin itm
angt

evidence
that we
cared

& then
what then
the waiter is

a very nice man
we will give him
twenty-five percent

have you a copy
of The Crock of Gold
i gave mine away too soon;

lost slipping out: James Stephens:
a glib ignoble tawpie looks over his shoulder
as he scampers down the alley with the rats


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry