Women Authors

Nature Writing 101

Our minds can turn anything romantic.

Is the problem.

The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes

         pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,

         at night, like two of Isadora Duncan’s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,

         harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren’t our hearts

more similar to wastelands.

We can make it kin, this pollution, children one is sad about yet still fond of, their

delinquency linked to our own, irreparable with familiarity, a lineage of stench &

         forgiveness. Our minds can assimilate all horrors.

         Is the problem.

         The animals will disappear and those small, strange invertebrates;

the bees will vanish & in the well-oiled waters, fish

will surge their deaths over the sand bags.

But then we keep saying, “Let’s construct another narrative.”

         The nightmares must simply be called reality.

         And after this you see,

         it is possible to carry on.