Moving on to the ecology scene.
I like to think of myself as a purist in camping
and I'm oftentimes irritated by people
with their campers on the backs of their pickups
and their trailers, and they drive into Forest Service
campgrounds and plug themselves in
and consider that they've been in the wilderness.
Well, I'm not naturally a very bitter man
but I suppose I could say that this poem came out
of the bitterness I feel about that type of thing.
And it is really rather sad these poor people
think that they have seen the wilderness.
"Campers."
Laboring from the year uphill, from the great plane
of their lives, they drag their entrails
with the weeks, cicatrix love, their paraphernalia.
Finally, the pines has advertised.
They groan, the sun doesn't sting their faces.
They don't know why.
And grunting at nightfall dig the pits,
line it with a bear's charred bones.
Polish his skull, it glows, they titter.
Stretch out with weary beer's flabby legs
to the lake their footstool.
Time to go in, to crank the shutters down.
Satisfied the rangers go home.
Well, perhaps over the next hill at the bottom
of the next undeveloped mountain there
are those few perfectly alone famished,
who roll up their jeans for a pillow stretching and ferns
among the spiders throw scrawny arms to the gloom--
lie there as the damp night crawls
from the ravines, mouths open, waiting for the stars
to eat their eyes.