Mark Koslow
Nature's RightsNow that I know
I don't eat meat either,
But Animal Rights activists
have it backwards.
I have wanted to tell them why.It is not just a question
of who represents
chimps in court,
nor is it enough to object
to those who wish to
count every grass blade,
kill odd numbered "pests"
and reduce all plants and animals
to patents owned under the personal province
of bio-profiteers.
"Total ecosystem management"
is an excuse to turn cells into factories
and refashion the ethics of slavery
under the guise of environmentalism.
this is no big surprise...So what did I wish to tell them?
If they would listen, that is?
I wanted to say
You did not need to give animals rights--
you only needed to listen to what they say
their rights are.I wanted to ask them:
Have you listened to the Monarch butterfly
speak of its right to Milkweed
as it flies around its pink flowers
each flower like a little star?Have you listened to the Red Milkweed
speaking of its need of clean water
in the wetlands where it grows?
The health of its leaves,
turning red after flowering
speaks of the water quality.Or have you heard the oriole's song
as it builds its nest
from last years Milkweed fiber?
Its song sings of its rights,
a fact ignored by ornithologists,
too busy counting and dissecting to listen.Have you listened to the Robin singing
above its nest full of little ones
and seen her eyes glower
as a cat approaches?
Have you seen the look of justice
when the blue jay complains of the hawk
and conspires with the Red Headed woodpecker
to drive it away?---
Inter-species declarations of rights.Or have you seen when a raccoon approaches a
nest of geese, and the ganders sound an alarm
lowering their necks in threat?
How the gorillas cry and growl when poachers approach
and the white tail of the deer like a flag flickering
between tree trunks, running,
a flag of alarm,
in so many words saying something like:
"Nazi hunters in Camouflage
have come to kill our babies." Run,
Run.The hummingbird squeaks a quiet alarm
around its favorite patch of bee balm.
"Do not harm what helps me live", it says.And the Pileated Woodpecker cries in the morning to its mate
Woika, woika, this is our land,
or –"do not tread on us".
Since we share, you share too.
---And the crows gathering into flocks in the fall
a thousand caws in the oaks of November
all of them saying, together,
this roost is our family's roost,
this is the land where we belong,
these are the trees of our awkward songs,
these are the branches of our birth.Have you watched the poppy's orange color
announce its right to the fog shrouded hills
when the sun lifts its own orange
out of the grey and blue?
Orange sun and orange flower
meet in a meadow of harmony.
Justice is what comes together
and brings the meeting between.
It is why birds mate
and fox kits play.Have you seen how the air gives
its rights
to the eagles wings
or how the right to sunlight is shared
by all the forest leaves that lived?
Life is what matters
and that is what death forgets
and why life always wins.Have you heard
how the cry of gulls calls
over the silver sea,
and how lonely beaches answer back with
seaweed and crab shells?
The earth is talking about its rights
when the forest burgeons in spring
and the question of who adjudicates
is all about listening.Nature is not about Darwinian dictators
but about hesitant listening.
Listening between leaves, between waves,
listening to owls between the whippoorwills
and the cicada between the acorn falling and
the frog at the waterfall.You are not the center of the universe
commanding a Great chain of being
from the top down.
You are nothing more than a breath
across a glorious rainbow
worth all the dew that
plants drink at dawn.
No small thing to be worth as much as
a sun on the gold fur of a chipmunk.Have you seen how the rainbow's
beauty dignifies the sky
and covers the land under its arch
with a memory of what needs to be?
A mouse startled by rustling leaves
while drinking from a stream
knows more of rights
than surveyors and developers.Nature lost its rights
when people stopped listening
to morning glories
or hearing how the
the land calls forth migrations,
or how traveling warblers
violate all private properties.
No Nature's rights are found in courts
or governments
but in the sprouts of ferns
out of the forest floor
or the dust of mushrooms
on the rotting log.Consider the rights of rotting logs
and the need of detritus and "debris".Consider how the right to wing-space
is measured in the flight of
the hummingbird over the Gulf of Mexico.
Measured in wonder
the rights of the hummingbirds are many, many
mountain chains long.The moon knows more about nature's rights
than judges. The tides know more
about winter and summer
than lawyers.
If you want to know what is coming
you need to ask what goes.
If you want to know what right
you have to kill albatrosses
or the mothers of elephants,
ask the sea breeze what dolphins mean
or barnacles about the purpose of kelp.
It is because of killers
Black Widows have poison.
Stop killing to stop the poison.Animals rights is meaningless
unless you ask the animals
what their rights are.
If you want to know the rights of biomes
or the rights of Tortoises
ask islands about the meaning of the sea
or mountains about why terns fly south
or ask the desert night
why macaws have multi-colored feathers.
The right of fish to the river is the same
as the right of your eye to light.If you do not see this
then that is what darkens the world
and explains why the animals are dying
why the fish are gone
the forests cut over
and greedy men sit alone
in minimal rooms, doing accounts,
with no self worth mentioning
nor nature to be seen.What clouds the issue of rights
is due to what you are not seeing
and what you are not seeing
comes from your refusal to listen.
Nature's rights become clear
only when you begin to hear them.
It is not the laws you pass that matters
but the love that is in your listening.Good laws might come
only if you begin where
mushrooms rot,
in the humus before gods
grew fangs of false justice--
eons before
biologists got a raise.
Rights begin where sea gets salt
between the ears of all your memories.
Listen.
Endangered Species
Maybe I saw the rare Bachman’s Warbler
or the Ivory Billed Woodpecker,
last seen in 1987.
Should I tell them?
those men in green uniforms,
who claim to be nature’s police
and call themselves "Naturalists".
What do they do,
these men who get paid to be green?
They sit in offices,
counting the value of one animal
against another, nature’s bankers,
cost- benefits of killing this deer
against that wildflower,
this rare trillium against that ungulate,
this tundra grass against that snow goose
turning species against species,
like card sharks playing angles against nature.
They make a mafia of diversity.
They maximize hunting profits
so many antlers sold
so many antlerless deer
so many grouse or turkey
sold to men who like killing for fun.
They set up a lottery to kill the really rare.
Big horn sheep. Elephants.
Should I tell them?--
these men with ID books
Peterson’s field guides
these men who serve hunters
when it was hunters who killed
the last Carolina Parakeet
the last Passeneger Pigion.
Nature is all "Natural Resources" to them
so much oil and gas like so much Red Osier Dogwood
so many woodducks like so much silver to be mined.
They are midway between
the robber barons of mineral rights
and the Agribusiness tycoons;
selling animal skulls and the right to torture.
These green men are Grey men.
Might as well be on Wall Street.
Count products as a KMart cashier.
Work in a slaughter house
Cutting cattle into meat strips.
Maybe I saw the rare trillium
or the Ivory Billed woodpecker.
But I won’t tell.
I will never tell.
Lost Canada of My Heart
Juncos have come from the tundra,
from near Hudson’s Bay
where the Beluga or Narwhal go.
There are no red maple leaves
on the backs of Juncos.
They are not Canadians,
just as I am not American.
I am more Junconian or Beluganian
or even Narwhalian than American.Loons cry out from my eyes
at the loss of the Northwest forests.
Ghosts of White Pines drift over Alberta
looking for the lost Buffalo.
Canada is where the sad rivers moan
with seagulls over Tierra del Fuego.
Canada is in the mists that burn
over the decimated Amazon.
Canada disappears with the salmon
that no longer follow rivers
to the sea.
Canada dies where the prairie dog towns
are silent.It is true I am not Canadian,
Nor American, nor of any country
that kills warblers
or murders waters with pesticides.
No land is mine that
despises wild wolves
and hunts moose for pleasure.I am from the country of Coyote,
where the wily dog smiles
between Tenochlitlan and
Nova Scotia.Call me Cinnamon Teal if you like,
burnt red like autumn fire.
Call me Yellow Warbler,
the spring singer, green seeker,
sunlight lover,
from Seneca lands in New York
to Costa Rica overwintering.But I will not be Canadian
or American
until the great Grey Owls
no longer hear chain saws
and cod return to the Great Banks
unmolested by greed.I am from where
the Canada goose flies
with snow geese
beyond Canadian borders
outside the fiction of
cruel countries.
I am from the no man’s land
that renounced nationalism.
I am of the land of Musk Ox dying
where the last Eskimo Curlew cries.Loons cry out from my eyes
at the loss of the Northwest forests.
Ghosts of White Pines drift over
Alberta looking for the lost Buffalo.
Canada is a land lost in my heart
Until the forests return
and the fish come back
and no red maple leaves
fall in polluted water.Until then
no land is mine
except where the plover goes.
I am from the country of Coyote,
where the wily dog smiles
between Macchu Picchu and
the Inuit Islands.
