Bell Jar Marsh


Blue line tin-can squeals to a stop.
Poor Black men and haggard Asians exit;
     Paupers wagering on the sport of kings.
Small men do battle in an equine hell where no one wins.

I escape through meat-grinder turnstile
     Only to dance through the traffic,
     That moving monument to American individualism.
Safely crossed, I'm free to join the wildness
     Of the marsh called Beautiful Island, Belle Isle.
The name should be Bell Jar,
     A shred of habitat screaming for salvation 
     Above the roar of landing jumbo jets.
The regularity of that din keeps the Swamp Sparrow's love song
     From the ears of his mate.
A solitary Yellowlegs is Alpha and Omega 
     In the near fishless stream.
Just as well they struggle in this tamed wilderness;
     An allegory of the approaching apocalypse.

Earth Day afterglow is not enough for the fearmongers
     To report record low ozone.
Front pages are occupied with Waco cult death.
Pictures of children wet media-trained eyes.

Why can't you close your eyes and picture our children's children
     Roasting in a greenhouse inferno
     Created by the cult of consumerism?

Gaia hears the Swamp Sparrow's song to Life.
She awaits our prayers for this Belle Isle,
     Floating in the void,
     Circling the Giver of Life.
Copyright � 1996 Ian Lynch. All rights reserved