Marooned

Living as I do

Beside busy people barely neighbors

Dodging cars and chasing time

Amongst trees that should not be here—

Where brittle Bradfords bear bitter fruit and Leylands pretend to be cypress

I crave quiet

A slower pace

Time measured in sunsets

And the return of the natives—

Liquid trickling songs of sparrows in the Longleaf

Ovenbirds teaching in oak and hickory

In a landscape fragmented by subdivisions

Named for the wildness they replaced

I am marooned

Stuck in a sea of cement

On an island called suburbia

Begging and baiting the birds to eat black oil handouts

The wildlife-

squirrels and starlings

Chipmunks and chickadees

Find refuge between the chain-link

The lines drawn to keep lawns sovereign

The world I crave is far away

In woods and fields and forests

Nameless and whole

Where the neighbors don’t speak

But bark, and gobble and sing

Where the squirrels are less brazen

And deer not dogs guard the world